Page 73 - NyghtVision Magazine Volume 2 #2
P. 73
THE BEAUTY OF SADNESS 66
here that I find beauty. To keep the sadness alive and so to breathe
In the decade before his death, Albert Camus life into beauty, I must create. Incessantly.
wrote a number of plays. One, called “Calig- Endlessly. To keep the sadness alive. To nur-
ula”, always stood out amongst the rest for ture and sustain the beauty. To rebel, as Ca-
me. Camus’ interpretation of Caligula and his mus would say, against the silence of the uni-
murderous activities is unique. Camus’ Calig- verse. To assert love, and hope, and beauty,
ula isn’t a mad man driven to murder because amidst a world in which all things and all
of some twisted psychological defect. His emotions die. It is how we fashion our hu-
need to murder those he loves goes far deeper manity in our rebellion against death, silence,
than that. In the final scene of the play, just meaninglessness, knowing all the while that
before he is killed, Caligula is asked why he death murders even our rebellion and steals
murdered those he loved. He replies: our humanity. Because time even steals our
grief. The only way to hold on to the moment
“Most people imagine that a man suffers be- is to cherish it, worship it, create within it,
cause, out of the blue, death snatches away and, finally, to mourn each moment, until I
the woman he loves. But his real suffering is am no more. As Camus’ Caligula murdered, I
less futile, it comes from the discovery that create because for me, if I do not create, I can-
grief, too, cannot last. Even grief is vanity.” not hold the moment, I cannot rebel against
To keep the grief alive, Caligula must murder death, I cannot feel the pain of beauty pass-
over and over again. ing…….
nyghtvision magazine volume 2, number 2, summer 2012