from The Plague by Albert Camus, translated by Stuart Gilbert
NY: The Modern Library, 1947, 1948
[Tarrou, a volunteer health worker explains himself] “That, too, is why this epidemic has taught me nothing new, except that I must fight it at your side. I know positively - yes, Rieux, I can say I know the world inside out, as you may see - that each of us has the plague within him, no one, no one on earth is free from it. And I know, too, that we must keep endless watch on ourselves lest in a careless moment we breathe in somebody’s face and fasten the infection on him. What’s natural is the microbe. All the rest - health, integrity, purity (if you like) is a product of the human will, of a vigilance that must never falter. The good man, the man who infects hardly anyone, is the man who has the fewest lapses of attention. And it needs tremendous will-power, a never ending tension of the mind, to avoid such lapses. Yes, Rieux, it’s a wearying business, being plague-stricken. But it’s still more wearying to refuse to be it. That’s why everybody in the world today looks so tired; everyone is more or less sick of plague. But that is also why some of us, those who want to get the plague out of their systems, feel such desperate weariness, a weariness from which nothing remains to set us free except death.
[Appamāda is a Buddhist term translated as "conscientious" or "concern". It is defined as taking great care concerning what should be adopted and what should be avoided. In the Pali Canon, a collection of the Buddha's earliest teachings, the term appamāda is quite significant and the essence of the meaning can not be captured with one English word. "Heedfulness", "diligence", and "conscientiousness", are all words that capture some aspects of appamāda. It is identified as one of the eleven virtuous mental faculties within the Mahayana Abhidharma teachings.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appamāda ]
“Pending that release, I know I have no place in the world of today; once I’d definitely refused to kill, I doomed myself to an exile that can never end. I leave it to others to make history. I know, too, that I’m not qualified to pass judgment on those others. There’s something lacking in my mental make-up, and its lack prevents me from being a rational murderer. So it’s a deficiency, not a superiority. But as things are, I’m willing to be as I am; I’ve learned modesty. All I maintain is that on this earth there are pestilences and there are victims, and it’s up to us, so far as possible, not to join forces with pestilences. That may sound simple to the point of childishness; I can’t judge if it’s simple, but I know it’s true. You see, I’d heard such quantities of arguments, which very nearly turned my head, and turned other people’s heads enough to make them approve of murder; and I’d come to realize that all our troubles spring from our failure to use plain, clean-cut language. So I resolved always to speak - and to act - quite clearly, as this was the only way of setting myself on the right track. That’s why I say there are pestilences and there are victims; no more than that. If, by making that statement, I, too, become a carrier of the plague-germ, at least I don’t do it willfully. I try, in short, to be an innocent murderer. You see, I’ve no great ambitions.
“I grant we should add a third category: that of the true healers. But it’s a fact one doesn’t come across many of them, and anyhow it must be a hard vocation. That’s why I decided to take, in every predicament, the victims’ side, so as to reduce the damage done. Among them I can at least try to discover how one attains to the third category; in other words, to peace."
More from The Plague at http://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com/2020/04/notes-on-camus-plague.html
More Camus at http://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com/2020/02/the-first-man-by-albert-camus.html