A reflection starting from Albert Camus

“No man can die in peace if he has not done what is necessary so that others may live.”

A memory at seventeen

I was about seventeen years old when I read the report of a conference dedicated to transplants and organ donation awareness. One of the speakers opened his talk with these words: “No man can die in peace if he has not done everything necessary so that others may live.” From that moment on, that sentence never left me. Not because it is comforting, but because it is true in that uncomfortable way of things we already know and prefer not to look at.

It is the driving force that guides me every day since I became a physician.

I must be honest: this phrasing is a synthesis, not a literal quote. But the thought is Albert Camus through and through, and it was enough to make me pause and ask myself a question that, by profession, is all too familiar to me.

A question I know well

In my work as a physician, I often find myself close to those who are dying—more often than one might imagine. I have seen people face the end of life in very different ways: some in peace, others not. And this difference did not always depend on the severity of the illness or on luck. Over time, I have become convinced that peace, in the end, is not a gift. Rather, it resembles the harvest of something sown earlier. Camus puts it even more clearly: you cannot die in peace if you haven’t done what was necessary so that others could live.

The temptation to stay comfortable

In 1946, in Brooklyn, Camus spoke about what he called man’s strongest temptation: inertia. The reasoning is simple, and precisely for that reason, unsettling. Because the cry of the victims is no longer heard, we tell ourselves that the world can go on like this a little longer. We do our job, we don’t kill anyone, we lie as little as possible, and we feel at peace with ourselves. Do we recognize ourselves in these words? Many will have no trouble admitting it. How many times have we thought that doing our job well was enough? That doing no harm was already a form of good? Camus responds that it is not enough, because evil also grows in the silence of those who choose not to see.

Guilty without ever raising a hand

There is a passage that unsettles me every time I reread it. Camus argues that one can be a murderer without ever having killed, because we become accomplices when we accept certain ideas: cynical realism, the notion that “that’s just how the world works,” or the belief that a noble end justifies any means. He does not speak as a judge. He says “we are” and not “you are.” He includes himself, and that is what makes him credible. It also struck me that he does not demand heroism. In fact, he distrusts heroes, because the worst harm has often come from those who were ready to die for an idea—and to make others die for that same idea.

What it truly means, in practice, to “let others live”

Here Camus is surprisingly simple, and this is the part I love the most. He does not ask us to save the world, but to reduce, as much as we can, human suffering. And he gives us a few concrete rules:

Calling things by their real name, without talking around them;

Rejecting terror, beginning with the death penalty;

Not expecting politics to resolve our inner struggles as well;

Seeking the values that unite us, so we can keep dialogue alive;

Never lying.

And then something I have reread several times: being simple, living up to one’s role, doing one’s work well. For me, this means truly listening to the patient, speaking without haste, delivering the truth with respect. These are not grand gestures. Yet they are the quiet acts through which, day after day, we give someone another chance at life.

Rebellion as a form of care

All of this, in Camus, stems from a precise idea of rebellion. Saying “no” to what is unbearable means, in the very same gesture, saying “yes” to something we hold in common. When someone is humiliated, what is wounded does not belong to them alone. It belongs to everyone. This is why commitment is not a luxury for sensitive souls. It is the practical expression of fraternity. And I believe it is also the only true antidote to a feeling I know well, one that is not mine alone: the weariness felt in the face of suffering too immense to be halted.

Hope without illusions

Camus was not an optimist. He knew that shifting human destiny even slightly takes centuries, and that the world will never become entirely just or happy. Yet he drew the opposite conclusion from the one that usually tempts us: precisely because the world is unjust, we must act for justice; precisely because it is unhappy, we must do something for happiness. It is a mature hope, offering no compromises. Perhaps it is the only one that feels honest to me today. And to admit that, one does not necessarily need faith.

One evening, at the end

When my time comes, I do not know what I will think. I only hope to be able to say, with sincerity, that I did my part—small and imperfect though it was—so that someone else could live a little better. I ask for nothing more. But if Camus is right, and I believe he is, this is precisely what will make the difference between a peaceful end and one full of regrets. That is why I chose to write it down here. Not as a lecture, but as a reminder I leave, first and foremost, for myself.

References

Albert Camus, “Are We Pessimists?” and “The Human Crisis” (1946), in Conferenze e discorsi (1937–1958), Bompiani, Milan, 2020. The opening sentence is a synthesis of Camusian themes and not a literal quote from the volume.