The Task of Free Souls
“Our task as men is to find the few principles that will calm the infinite anguish of free souls. We must mend what has been torn apart, make justice imaginable again in a world so obviously unjust, give happiness a meaning once more to peoples poisoned by the misery of the century. Naturally, it is a superhuman task. But superhuman is the term for tasks men take a long time to accomplish, that is all.” ALBERT CAMUS · THE ALMOND TREES
As the freedom month nears its close, Camus gives us its largest statement, from a short wartime essay called The Almond Trees. Our task, he writes, is to find the few principles that will calm the infinite anguish of free souls. We must mend what has been torn apart, make justice imaginable again in a world that is plainly unjust, and give happiness a meaning once more to people poisoned by the misery of the age. Then he names the size of it. Naturally, it is a superhuman task. But superhuman, he adds, is only the word for tasks that take us a long time to accomplish.
Notice the phrase, the anguish of free souls. Camus knew that freedom does not by itself make people calm, or good. A free soul can be a lost one, anxious, adrift, even capable of great harm. Freedom is the beginning, not the end. The real work is what we do with it, and he states that work plainly. Mend what is broken. Keep justice imaginable. Make happiness mean something again. This is freedom turned outward, freedom that has stopped admiring itself and started to build.
What saves the passage from despair is its last move. He calls the task superhuman and then quietly redefines the word. Superhuman does not mean impossible. It means slow. It means longer than one life, accomplished by many hands across many years, which is exactly why it can feel beyond any single person. Your part is small, and that is fine. Small parts, enough of them, over enough time, are how the superhuman gets done.
Today, take up one corner of that task. Mend one torn thing. Make justice a little more imaginable within your own reach. Give some weary person a reason to believe happiness still means something. Use your freedom to build.
