[One Thousand Characters a Day] Albert Camus' 'Inside and Outside'

Editor's NoteAsia Economy provides daily 1,000-character transcription content for the 'One Day, One Thousand Characters' newsletter readers. The transcription content is carefully selected according to daily and monthly themes from Eastern and Western classics, Korean literature, famous columns, and notable speeches.
Today's transcription excerpt is taken from Albert Camus's essay collection ＜L’envers et l’endroit (The Wrong Side and the Right Side)＞, specifically the essay ＜Between Affirmation and Negation＞. Although Camus spent his life writing about resistance and absurdity, he said, "There is no love of life without despair about life." This means that life and death, affirmation and negation, irony?the inside and outside of life?ultimately touch each other. As you transcribe Camus's words, which reveal a tender affection for the small moments of human life, you will come to realize that both pain and joy are ultimately one and the same. Recommended by Park Jeongnam, Team Leader of Brand Marketing TF at Kyobo Bookstore. Character count: 1012.

Irony, rigidity of mind, all such things quiet down, and finally I returned to my hometown. I do not wish to reflect on happiness. No, this is much simpler and much easier than that. Because within the moments I retrieve from the depths of oblivion, there is a pure emotion, a memory frozen in eternity. Only that is true in my heart, yet I always realize it too late. We love a certain movement that bends flexibly, a tree standing perfectly in the landscape. And when we want to vividly revive that love, what comes to mind is merely some detail?like a scent long closed off, or the strange sound of footsteps on the road?but that is enough. That is my case. At that time, I could love by surrendering myself; finally, I became myself. Because only love brings us back to ourselves. Slowly, quietly, and solemnly, those times return, as overwhelming and moving as they were then?because now it is evening, the time is lonely, and the sky, where the light has faded, holds some vague desire. Each recovered gesture reveals my image to myself. Someone once told me, "Living is so hard." I remember that tone. Another time, someone whispered to me, "The worst thing is to hurt others." When everything ends, the thirst for life also subsides. Is that what people call happiness? Tracing such memories, we clothe everything in the same invisible garment, and death appears to us like a faded background color. We return to ourselves again. We feel our grief, and through it, we love more. Yes, perhaps that is happiness. That is, the feeling of pity for our misfortune.