True Victory

The one true victory vouchsafed to humankind in this life is a form of insight or wisdom that Albert Camus characterized as "lucidity." I call it "coming to terms." But, whatever one calls it, the substance is the same: we acknowledge to ourselves the nature of the human predicament and make our peace with it. We then begin to acknowledge publicly what we have realized (what I call "bearing witness"). Finally, if we have integrity (i.e., a fundamental respect for ourselves and others similarly situated--the human race), we choose to make the very best of the time allotted us by entering the lists on behalf of our beleaguered species. I call this "redeeming the time." In Camus's mythopoesis, the archetypal figures engaged in this threefold flowering of integral existence are Dr. Bernard Rieux and Jean Tarrou.