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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Excellent Links / Late Night Reprieve Open Thread

Late Night Reprieve Open Thread

by Anne Laurie|  March 11, 20223:04 am| 13 Comments

This post is in: Excellent Links, Open Threads

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I don’t usually laugh at my own comics, but every time I stumble on this one and read through it again, it gets me https://t.co/cnv6upPsgG pic.twitter.com/eNpEgq2t65

— Randall Munroe (@xkcd) March 9, 2022

“In the depths of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.”

Time for Camus (again) and his extraordinary reflection on strength through impossible times, penned at the peak of WWII: https://t.co/TxA0z2bXKv

— Maria Popova (@brainpicker) March 11, 2022

… Nowhere does Camus’s generous attention to the human spirit emanate more brilliantly than in a 1940 essay titled “The Almond Trees” (after the arboreal species that blooms in winter), found in his Lyrical and Critical Essays (public library) — the superb volume that gave us Camus on happiness, despair, and how to amplify our love of life. Penned at the peak of WWII, to the shrill crescendo of humanity’s collective cry for justice and mercy, Camus’s clarion call for reawakening our noblest nature reverberates with newfound poignancy today, amid our present age of shootings and senseless violence.

At only twenty-seven, Camus writes:

We have not overcome our condition, and yet we know it better. We know that we live in contradiction, but we also know that we must refuse this contradiction and do what is needed to reduce it. Our task as [humans] 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 [we] take a long time to accomplish, that’s all.

Let us know our aims then, holding fast to the mind, even if force puts on a thoughtful or a comfortable face in order to seduce us. The first thing is not to despair. Let us not listen too much to those who proclaim that the world is at an end. Civilizations do not die so easily, and even if our world were to collapse, it would not have been the first. It is indeed true that we live in tragic times. But too many people confuse tragedy with despair. “Tragedy,” [D.H.] Lawrence said, “ought to be a great kick at misery.” This is a healthy and immediately applicable thought. There are many things today deserving such a kick.

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Reader Interactions

13Comments

  1. 1.

    HumboldtBlue

    March 11, 2022 at 3:28 am

    We must mend what has been torn apart, make justice imaginable again in a world so obviously unjust

    Balloon-Juice quilters, seamstresses, front-pagers and comment sages.

    A brilliant fabric, stitched together around a fat man and his herd.

    Bleet.

  2. 2.

    Ruckus

    March 11, 2022 at 3:35 am

    @HumboldtBlue:

    Nice!

  3. 3.

    eclare

    March 11, 2022 at 4:12 am

    Lovely writing.  Insomnia strikes again, may as well get up and make some tea.

  4. 4.

    Ten Bears

    March 11, 2022 at 5:28 am

    That cartoon could have been drawn (written?) for my old hometown: Bend “Beer Drunk Town USA” Oregon, home of the Mad Hatters, poverty with a view, the place to go to get away with murder …

  5. 5.

    satby

    March 11, 2022 at 6:42 am

    I never realized how young Camus was when he wrote that. But thanks AnneLaurie for the Friday morning inspiration / motivation!

  6. 6.

    skerry

    March 11, 2022 at 7:35 am

    Thanks, Anne Laurie. I needed this to start my day.

  7. 7.

    debbie

    March 11, 2022 at 7:53 am

    The first thing is not to despair.

    Probably the hardest thing. Thanks so much AL for this reminder of the power of Camus. I may have to do some rereading.

  8. 8.

    O. Felix Culpa

    March 11, 2022 at 8:10 am

    Thank you, AL. It’s a long time since I read Camus (egads, high school!). I need to revisit his works.

  9. 9.

    satby

    March 11, 2022 at 8:25 am

    @O. Felix Culpa: Didn’t appreciate his writing in H.S., but I also need to go back and reread him.

    Overnight our predicted “coating to an inch” of snow morphed into 3 inches already on the ground with snow expected to continue another couple of hours. Frustrating, because I didn’t bother putting my windshield snow cover on last night for just a “coating”. At least I hadn’t put the snowboots away yet. I know better than that!

  10. 10.

    O. Felix Culpa

    March 11, 2022 at 9:25 am

    @satby: We’re getting snow too, but not much more than an inch where we are. Santa Fe and parts north might get more. As I recall, snow gear should remain at the ready in the greater Chicago area until mid-April at minimum. Stay warm and dry!

  11. 11.

    Raoul Paste

    March 11, 2022 at 9:48 am

    Well done, Anne.  And generous too

  12. 12.

    prostratedragon

    March 11, 2022 at 10:30 am

    Thanks for all the thoughts, AL. Must read and re-read Camus. Popova suggests a good list of similar works to start a reading program.

  13. 13.

    billcinsd

    March 11, 2022 at 6:28 pm

    If Existential Comics is to be believed, Camus amplified his love life by having sex with many models

    https://www.existentialcomics.com/philosopher/Albert_Camus

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