November 8, 2025
There’s something almost comforting about this quote, at least until you realize Camus is probably talking about you. Or me. Or both of us. It’s one of those lines that sounds poetic until it hits you like a brick in the face.
Camus is calling out the human tendency to disguise fear as reason. We invent these tidy belief systems that make us feel noble for not doing what scares us. We tell ourselves stories that sound wise but are really excuses wearing glasses.
“I’m not lazy, I’m protecting my peace.”
“I’m not afraid to fail, I’m just waiting for the right time.”
“I’m not avoiding risk, I’m being responsible.”
They all sound respectable. They all sound rational. And yet, they all reek faintly of fear.
I’ve done this more times than I care to admit. I’ve built entire castles of logic to protect myself from the discomfort of courage. Sometimes those castles are beautifully designed, complete with moats of overthinking and towers of justification. But they’re still prisons.
The older I get, the more I realize that courage doesn’t feel like courage. It feels like uncertainty, nausea, and mild regret until about 10 minutes after you do the thing. It’s rarely cinematic. Most of the time it’s small, shaky, and quiet.
Writing something honest.
Apologizing first.
Waking up early when no one asked you to.
Changing your mind, publicly.
Camus wasn’t shaming people for being afraid; he was shaming the way we dress up our fear to make it look like philosophy. He’s saying, in essence, “Don’t use intellect as armor. Use it as a mirror.”
I used to think philosophy was about having all the right answers. Now I think it’s about asking better questions, especially the ones that make you squirm. What am I hiding behind? What belief do I keep quoting to protect myself from risk?
If I’m honest, I can trace some of my most “reasonable” decisions back to fear: fear of judgment, fear of rejection, fear of looking stupid. But when I peel those layers away, what’s left is something that looks suspiciously like the life I actually want.
Courage doesn’t eliminate fear; it simply tells fear it doesn’t get to hold the microphone anymore.
Camus believed that meaning comes from facing the absurd head-on, from showing up despite the chaos, the doubt, and the lack of guarantees. So maybe real courage isn’t some grand, heroic act. Maybe it’s just refusing to lie to yourself about why you’re not trying.
And if you can do that, even for a day, you’re already braver than most.
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