The Fewest Lapses
“The good man, the man who infects hardly anyone, is the man who has the fewest lapses of attention. And it needs tremendous will-power, a never-ending tension of the mind, to avoid such lapses.” ALBERT CAMUS · THE PLAGUE
Tarrou, the quiet hero of The Plague, offers a definition of goodness so plain it is easy to underestimate. The good man, he says, is the one who infects hardly anyone, the one with the fewest lapses of attention. Goodness is not a glow or a special talent. It is mostly a matter of not letting your guard down in the small moments when you might harm someone without noticing.
This is a startling way to think about being good. We usually imagine the good person as warm, generous, full of fine feeling. Tarrou shifts the whole picture. He is talking about attention, about how easily we wound others through carelessness rather than malice. A sharp word when we are tired. A dismissal when we are distracted. A cruelty we never meant, breathed out in a careless moment. Most harm between people is not planned. It leaks out through lapses.
And notice what he says it costs. Tremendous will-power. A never-ending tension of the mind. To keep from harming others takes constant, unglamorous effort, the discipline of staying awake to the people around you when it would be easier to zone out.
Today, treat your attention as a moral thing. In one conversation where you would normally drift, stay fully present. Watch for the careless word before it leaves you. Goodness, in the end, is mostly this vigilance.
