Proud of the Condition
“I love this life with abandon and wish to speak of it boldly: it makes me proud of my human condition.” ALBERT CAMUS · NUPTIALS AT TIPASA
Camus is young, standing in ruins beside the sea in spring, and he says something that would be embarrassing if he did not mean it so completely. He loves this life without reservation, and it makes him proud to be a human being.
Pride is an unexpected word here. The condition he is describing is the one he spent his career refusing to soften. We die. The universe does not answer. Our efforts carry no guarantee. Everywhere else he calls this the absurd. Here he says it makes him proud.
The two are not in conflict. What he is proud of is the fact that people live inside our situation anyway, and do not merely endure it. That we plant things we may not see grow. That we love people we are certain to lose. That knowing all of this, we still go down to the water in the morning.
A month spent on persistence can start to sound like grim endurance, teeth gritted, getting through. Camus wants something better than that from us. Not survival but appetite.
Say plainly what you love about being alive. Out loud, to someone, without qualifying it afterward.
