The Stranger

And then my son handed me another book.

Have you read L’Étranger by Albert Camus?

Yes. Another literary essay. Yes I read it for his French class.

You’re welcome son. Again.

Written in 1942 L’Étranger follows Meursault — a man living in French Algeria who feels emotionally detached from everything. His mother. His girlfriend. Society. Himself.

The novel opens with one of the most famous lines in literature: “Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday.”

Right away we understand — this man does not perform emotion. He does not cry at his mother’s funeral. He does not pretend to feel what he doesn’t feel.

And society cannot forgive him for it.

When Meursault eventually kills a man on a beach almost impulsively he goes to trial.

But here is the remarkable thing — he is not condemned for the murder.

He is condemned for not crying at his mother’s funeral.

For refusing the performance.

The court, the jury, society itself — they can tolerate violence more easily than they can tolerate someone who refuses to feel on cue.

Think about that for a moment.

We punish difference. We punish anyone who doesn’t behave the way we’ve collectively decided people are supposed to behave. When someone refuses to conform it forces us to question our own conformity and we cannot tolerate that question.

Don’t we all judge when people are different from what we expect?

I am guilty. Absolutely guilty.

But here is where Camus hit me personally.

I spent thirty years performing.

The composed one. The crisis manager. The woman who never cracked under pressure.

The indispensable one.

I performed exactly how people expected me to be.

And when I wasn’t performing?

I was dissociating.

Floating six feet above my own life. Emotionless. Detached.

I was Meursault in a power suit.

Except I wasn’t refusing the performance. I was drowning in it. And underneath all that performance was a woman who had forgotten what she actually felt.

Meursault refused to perform grief.

I performed everything else instead.

Same sentence. Different crime.

This book — thank you son — made me realize that being a high performer was just a performance.

The question is — what are we so afraid of when someone refuses to perform?

Maybe we are afraid they will remind us that we are performing too.