"IL VIVAIT COMME UN MORT"

I read an English translation of L’Étranger, the well-known existentialist and absurdist novel by Albert Camus, some years ago. And yet it has remained present in my thoughts, reflections, and musings ever since. There’s one line in particular that continues to echo in my mind:

“Il n’était même pas sûr d’être en vie, puisqu’il vivait comme un mort.”
(He wasn’t even sure he was alive, because he was living like a dead man.)

It’s a confronting sentence. It emerges at the end of the novel as a rejection of going through life in a kind of spiritual slumber—drifting, avoiding truth, numbing ourselves with distractions or beliefs that keep us from facing the rawness of life. It’s a call to wake up. Camus was warning us of the danger of living without really living—of simply existing, instead of engaging with the world fully, courageously, and consciously.

This sentence struck me again more recently while reading a very different book—Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet by Thich Nhat Hanh. A Vietnamese Zen master and global spiritual teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh quotes this very line from Camus and offers a powerful interpretation: that many of us live our lives in a kind of spiritual sleep. We rush, we worry, we plan, we scroll—but we forget to live. We forget to breathe. We forget to notice. We forget to be awake to the miracle of our own existence.

Thich Nhat Hanh’s invitation is both gentle and radical. He says we do not need to wait for any grand enlightenment or achievement. The simple act of walking mindfully on the Earth, breathing consciously, or sharing a smile with a child is already a way of coming back to life.

As a Catholic school, our call is not only to academic excellence or good behaviour. We are called to fullness of life. Jesus spoke of this in John’s Gospel: “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” That kind of living is active. It seeks truth. It listens deeply. It notices beauty. It helps others. It takes risks. It questions when something doesn’t sit right. And it feels—joy, sadness, gratitude, wonder.

To live fully isn’t about constant activity or relentless ambition—it’s about presence. It’s about noticing the wonder in ordinary things: a leaf, a voice, a question asked by a curious student. It’s about helping our young people not just succeed, but to wake up—to live with attention, gratitude, and purpose.

Let’s wake up to the gift of being here, together, now. And support our young people to find meaning in their friendships, their learning, their questions. To be sure that they are alive—and to know why.

Mr Casimir Douglas

Tuesday 10th June, 2025