The Same Century
“At times I feel myself overtaken by an immense tenderness for these people around me who live in the same century.” ALBERT CAMUS · NOTEBOOKS 1951-1959
It arrives without warning. Camus says he is overtaken. He is not deciding to feel generous toward humanity, he is ambushed by affection for the strangers who happen to be alive at the same time as him.
The reason he gives is the whole thing. They live in the same century. That is the entire qualification. Not that they are good, or agree with him, or have earned anything from him. Only that they are here now, in this particular slice of time, and will be gone at roughly the same moment he is.
Most of the time we sort people constantly. Allies and opponents, interesting and not, worth the effort and not. The sorting is useful and it is also exhausting, and it hides something obvious, which is that everyone currently alive is in the same brief situation as you.
You will never meet anybody from the next century. The people in the supermarket are your entire cohort. Camus’s word is tenderness, which is gentler than love and much easier to extend. You can feel it toward a stranger while knowing nothing about them.
You have no particular reason to care about most of the people you will see today. You are contemporaries. That is reason enough.
