Summer in Algiers (1936)

(Originally Written October 14, 2008 in the Journal)

Summer in Algiers (1936)

The openness and abundance of Algiers gives pleasure without remedy and joy without hope. It gives man his splendor and his misery.

Truth carries with it a bitterness.

It is ridiculous not to live by the body. To deny its impulses is to deny it life. Rather, drink when you are thirsty, bed a woman you desire, marry a woman you love and afterwards (as Camus' friend Vincent) say I feel better.

Algiers offers two contrasting pleasures; the abundance of the beach and the silence of the city. The key here is experiencing it, of living it.

Life, as joys, in Algiers are merciless and sudden. Life is not to be built up, but to be burned up.

Virtue is meaningless, but that does not mean that men lack principles.

There is nothing sacred in death; it is abhorred.

"The contrary of a civilized nation is a creative nation" (Camus)

The greatness of man as culture is one cast fully in the present (no past/future) and without myth or solace.

Relative truths are the only truths that stir individual men.

Spirituality is solely confined to this lifetime. Eternity is solely what survives us.

What exalts life increases the absurdity of life.

To sin is to sin against life, which is to elude life in the hope of another one.

Hope is resignation, to live is not to resign oneself.