January 19, 2012
“In the depth of winter I finally learned that within me lay an invincible summer.”
Albert Camus (1913-1960)
Born to poverty in Algeria, then a French colony, Camus lost his father the following year in the First World War. His precocious brilliance was recognized with scholarships to the University of Algiers where he studied philosophy. During the 1930’s he was active in the French Communist Party and the Algerian People’s Party and began WWII as a pacifist, later joining the fight against the Axis. He gained prominence with his books The Stranger and The Myth of Sisyphus and is often linked to the Existentialism of Sartre, although Camus himself referred to his philosophy as Absurdist, which posits that we ourselves must create meaning in our lives . He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957, but was killed in an automobile accident two years later.
Good Morning Gloucester 
I wholly identify with this quote, although, (at the risk of sounding peculiar) I think I experience some form of rebirth each and every winter. Thank you for sharing.
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Greg,
Noting your experience in Paris and Lausanne, I hope you picked up enough French to have read Camus in the original. L’étranger is an amazing book because its simple language expresses such deep thoughts.
Thanks for today’s inspiration,
David
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Without our peculiarities we would be boringly the same. Vive la Difference!
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