Choice of Happiness

Albert Camus’s novel, The Plague, tells the story of a plague that broke out in the city of Oran and how different people responded to it.  Dr Bernard Rieux takes positive action.  He does not believe in god or religion but believes in a personal as well as a social code of ethics.  He devotes his entire time to fighting the plague.

Father Paneloux, a Catholic priest, thinks that the plague is a punishment from God for the people’s sins.  However, when a young boy dies and Dr Rieux questions Paneloux about it, the priest is faced with a test of his faith.  He cannot discover a satisfactory answer to the radical question about the validity of his faith.  He dies clutching a cross.  Dr Rieux knows that he did not die of plague.  He died probably out of the painful realisation that his God was not as meaningful to him as he believed so far. 

Jean Tarrou, the chronicler of the plague, knows that human existence, suffering and death have no rational or moral meaning.  For him, life is a struggle whose meaning is created by each individual.  Meaning is a personal choice.

“But what does it mean, the plague? It’s life, that’s all.”  The novel says.  Life is a constant struggle.  The plague is just a metaphor for that struggle.  Enduring that struggle using all the skills and strategies you possess is the only meaningful thing about life. 

“The evil in the world comes almost always from ignorance, and goodwill can cause as much damage as ill-will if it is not enlightened. People are more often good than bad, though in fact that is not the question. But they are more or less ignorant and this is what one calls vice or virtue, the most appalling vice being the ignorance that thinks it knows everything and which consequently authorizes itself to kill. The murderer's soul is blind, and there is no true goodness or fine love without the greatest possible degree of clear-sightedness.”

When questioned what prompted him to fight the plague and help the people risking his own life, Dr Rieux says, “I don’t know.  My… my code of morals, perhaps.”  “Your code of morals.  What code, if I may ask?” He is questioned and his answer is just one word: “Comprehension.”

When choices are made out of comprehension, we lead happy, positive, meaningful lives.  Yes, the secret of positively happy living is comprehension: an insightful and intelligent understanding of life.  Not that the comprehension will make life entirely blissful.  It will help us cope with the negativity around, with the inevitable evils that accompany life without fail. 

PS. Written for IndiSpire Edition 203: Ways to create positivity and happiness around ourselves In negative situations of life #selflove