There are moments when the comfortable stories we tell ourselves fall away. The routine that usually carries us through the day suddenly feels absurd. We glimpse, if only for an instant, how strange it is to be alive in a universe that offers no explanation for our presence. These are the moments Camus calls glimpses of our exile.

The natural response is to flee. We reach for distractions, for busyness, for any story that will restore our sense of belonging. Some people turn to nostalgia, wishing they could return to a time before they saw what they saw. Others throw themselves into ideologies that promise certainty. Anything to escape the uncomfortable clarity.

But Camus insists there is no going back. You cannot unsee what you have seen. The only path forward is to make peace with your lucidity rather than fight it. This does not mean resignation or despair. It means accepting that you have glimpsed something true about your condition and choosing to live with that knowledge rather than against it.

The word “cured” is significant. Camus suggests that our real sickness is not the clarity itself but our resistance to it. We exhaust ourselves running from insights that could free us if we would only stop and face them. Peace comes not from escaping lucidity but from finally accepting it.