Lords of a Strange Kingdom
“A few men had been ceaselessly trudging, possessing nothing but serving no one, poverty-stricken but free lords of a strange kingdom.” ALBERT CAMUS · EXILE AND THE KINGDOM
In the opening story of Exile and the Kingdom, a woman named Janine rides a bus across the Algerian desert beside her husband. Her life is comfortable and a little airless, arranged around safety and routine. Then she sees them, the nomads of the high plateau, and Camus describes what she sees. For ages a few men had been ceaselessly trudging, possessing nothing but serving no one, poverty-stricken but free lords of a strange kingdom.
The phrase stops her, and us. Possessing nothing but serving no one. The nomads own almost nothing, and that is precisely the root of their freedom. They are lords, Camus says, lords of a strange kingdom, because nothing ties them down, no property to guard, no master to please, no comfortable life that has quietly become a cage. Janine, who has so much more than they do, suddenly feels how unfree her abundance has made her.
This is not a summons to go live in the desert. It is a mirror. Most of us have built lives of accumulation, and each thing we acquire asks to be protected, maintained, insured, kept. We rarely notice the moment our possessions begin to possess us, when serving our own comfort has become a full-time job with no days off.
The nomads are free because they have arranged their lives so that very little can be taken from them. There is a clue in that, even for people who will never give up their homes. What you can lose, you must defend, and what you must defend, you serve.
Today, find one thing you own that has quietly started to own you, one possession or arrangement you spend yourself protecting. Loosen your grip on it, even slightly. Feel for the freedom of the one who serves no one because he clutches nothing.
