I sometimes joke with friends that one reason I have remained reasonably sane during this troubling period in American history is that I spent so much time reading existential writers in college. The line usually gets a laugh, but there is some truth in it.
During my senior year at Washington College, I spent a semester working one-on-one with J. David Newell, then chair of the philosophy department. My independent study focused on Albert Camus, and we read much of his work over several months, including The Stranger, The Plague, and The Myth of Sisyphus. I was young enough (20) to find his ideas “cool”, but without any sense of what a truly tormented world might actually look like in 2026.
Camus resisted being labeled an existentialist, but he wrestled with many of the same questions. In simple terms, how do we live when the universe offers no clear explanation for suffering, injustice, or death?
As J. David taught me, Camus called this conflict the absurd. We want life to make sense. We want suffering to have an explanation and justice to prevail. But the world promises none of those things.
For Camus, recognizing that fact was not a reason for despair. It was a reason to live fully, care for others, oppose injustice, and find meaning in the life directly in front of us.
I was reminded of all this recently while listening to a BBC podcast about Camus. A guest scholar quoted a passage from his essay “Return to Tipasa” that immediately flashed me back to that independent study. Camus wrote that he had been placed halfway between misery and the sun:
“Misery kept me from believing that all was well under the sun,
and the sun taught me that history was not everything.”
I remembered the passage, but it reached me differently this time. At twenty-one, it had been a useful way to understand Camus. Now it sounded more like practical advice.
In this context, I take Camus’s use of “history” to mean the great machinery of public events unfolding around us. War, ideology, political violence, corruption, cruelty, raw stupidity, and all the other forces that can make an individual feel small and powerless.
Camus sometimes described his outlook as a Mediterranean philosophy. Sunshine, the sea, the physical world, friendship, beauty, and laughter were not side benefits of a life lived amid suffering. They were part of his answer to despair. History mattered deeply to him, but he refused to grant it ownership of the entire human experience.
For the past 12 years, I have walked almost every day from my home in Easton’s historic district to the Rails-to-Trails path and eventually to John Ford Park.
There is one point on that walk that surprises me almost every time. I move through a familiar town park and then, with almost no warning, the landscape opens onto an Eastern Shore field. Route 50 is less than 100 feet away, but the change is so sudden that it always feels like a small reveal. The town gives way to open land, the horizon widens, and for a moment, I am taken out of whatever argument, deadline, or bit of bad news has been occupying my day.
Nothing has been solved. The news has not improved. The world is no less troubled than it was a few minutes earlier. But when that field appears, I find myself returned to the present.
Perhaps that is what Camus meant by sunshine.
It is not a suggestion to look away from suffering. It is a reminder that suffering does not have a monopoly on reality. The world contains cruelty, but it also contains fields, friendships, work worth doing, unexpected beauty, and the kind of laughter that briefly takes control of the entire body.
Those things do not erase history. They simply remind us that history is not everything.
Every so often, an old writer comes back from the black hole of memory and gives us a new way to arrange our thinking. Camus did that for me this week. He reminded me that we can remain fully aware of the storms around us without surrendering the rest of life to them.
And perhaps, every now and then, it helps to notice the field.
12 Responses
Dave … What a pleasant, helpful rumination that is! Thank you for sharing, and please continue to do so! (Have I been remiss in not noting such tasty morsels from you before? I’m a daily follower of The Spy, but I’ll pay closer attention in the future!) Thanks, cj
Delightful and excellent message, thank you!
Thanks Dave for this interesting essay on a positive ways to see the world.
In these days full of sound and fury, I would not think to seek solace in the writings of any existentialist. There is a darkness about many of them. I should re-read Camus.
I like think of Sisyphus when I strive to improve the world. For eternity, he was condemned to push a boulder up a hill. Just as he neared the top, his strength failed and the boulder rolled back down. He had to start again, which could be frustrating.
Not so bad if you imagine Sisyphus loved pushing boulders. There is a simple lesson here: love the activity. That helps a lot.
Back in the darkness of the last century, I taught philosophy briefly at Washington College. J. David Newell was a colleague. He’s a good person. I still teach an occasional philosophy course, so it’s a pleasure to read the subject can have a lasting positive effect on people.
Be that field.
Be the sunshine.
Touch lives in positive ways.
Thank you, David. By sharing those words, you brightened the day for me and many others. Thank you again.
Jon Powers
Thank you Dave. It’s uplifting to acknowledge the chaos and injustice all around us without submitting to it as inevitable or everlasting.
Sunshine does coexist with darkness, yet the darkness cannot evade or withstand the light.
And this metaphor is an accurate reflection of what is everlasting. Darkness merely calls forth the light, the sun rises on each new day and life begins again.
So, the problem is not that darkness exists, it’s merely part of our experience in life, what matters is our response, love or fear, light or darkness.
Camus me and you.
Dear F.D. Wheelan, We were delighted not only by the timing but the depth of your thoughts about Mr. Camus.
Of all the philosophers I studied at Brown and other higher institutions, Camus has remarkable staying power and he encourages many of us to return to the writings of the grand old man and rethink his views. I first read him at age 19 and soon I will be 90. He’s been quite a good pal along the trail. The proof being that I go back occasionally and reread his more memorable essays.
Your timely and thoughtful note coincides with my soon to be published epic poem, “MR. LINCOLN LOOKS DOWN UPON HIS SHIP.”
As you and others know my wonderful grandson recently completed a three yr. deployment on the — you guessed it — the USS GEO. WASHINGTON and is now based on Guam. Who could have predicted that shortly after leaving the WASHINGTON that carrier would be deployed post haste to the highly volatile Iranian world where risk and danger lurk. One could say he’s lucky; others may disagree. Were it not for the ragged fortunes of the USS LINCOLN none of these events would have occurred. I am proud of the Navy and the service I rendered to it 60 years ago. It’s heart breaking to learn of the mal feasance to the calamity of the LINCOLN. Only Mr. Hegseth fails to see the profound meaning of a multi-million dollar ship unable to perform and to protect its crew. I’d like to think that on board the WASHINGTON at least some of the crew members are reading Camus this very evening. His writing offers the deepest insight into the human condition and might enable these wonderful men and women perspective into a troubled world.
Hi Dave- thoroughly enjoyed your observations! Despite current events we can be comforted by the fact that presidential terms only last for a limited (but not inconsequential) period. That is only one of the happy thoughts that I turn to when things look especially dark. Absurdist literature or Alice in Wonderland are especially appropriate literary diversions under current political conditions.
Thank you, Dave. I love this’s reflection!
What a great read for early Sunday morning, Dave. Thank you for your thoughts. They are much appreciated. And I would like to quote you if you don’t object, with “we can remain fully aware of the storms around us without surrendering the rest of life to them.” That so resonated with me.
Thank you! This lifted my spirits today.
Dave Wheelan, Camus and John Ford Park – a lovely trio indeed. Thank you, kind sir, for these stirring words. A truly unique perspective on a very special place in our beloved Easton.