Camus is describing a strange thing that happens when you rebel. You stop being only yourself. The act of refusal calls something out of you that exceeds your individual life. You speak for, and stand with, anyone who could be where you are.

He calls this “metaphysical.” The word is strong. He does not mean that the connection is mystical. He means that it is more than a feeling, more than a tactic, more than a coalition formed for convenience. It is the ground that the rebel discovers underneath the act of rebelling. Other people were there before you noticed.

A whistleblower cannot honestly claim that her grievance is only personal. She speaks for every employee who would be in her position. A parent who pushes back on a school policy is not only standing up for one child. They are standing up for every child in that classroom. The act of refusing widens the self automatically, whether or not you intended this.

There is a comfort in this idea, but also a demand. The comfort is that you are not alone in your refusal, even when you stand by yourself in the room. The demand is to remember, when you rebel, that you are speaking for more than your own preferences. The dignity you defend in yourself is the dignity you are also defending in everyone like you. To rebel is to discover, sometimes belatedly, that you have always been part of a we.

See also: May 5: Therefore We Exist, February 21: The Strangeness We Share, Albert Camus