As a remedy to life in society I would suggest the big city.

Hear, O seeker of wisdom, the paradoxical words of Albert Camus: “As a remedy to life in society I would suggest the big city. Nowadays, it is the only desert within our means.” These words may seem strange at first, for what is more crowded than a city, and what is more empty than a desert? Yet Camus, philosopher of the absurd, spoke of a truth hidden in plain sight: that within the multitude, the individual may find solitude, and that amidst the clamor of men, the soul may discover a silence deeper than in the wilderness.

In the big city, humanity presses close—voices, footsteps, lights without end. Yet within this flood of life, one may be unseen. Anonymity becomes a cloak, and the individual, lost in the crowd, may breathe the strange solitude of invisibility. This is the desert Camus describes—not a place of sand and silence, but a space where one may wander unseen, where the soul may detach itself from the bindings of family, neighbors, and village gossip, and live for a time as though in exile. For in the city, though all are near, none truly look; and in this blindness, the self may breathe freely.

Think of the wanderer in New York City in the twentieth century. Surrounded by millions, he walks through Times Square or Central Park nameless, faceless, unjudged. In a small town, every step would be watched, every choice weighed by the eyes of neighbors. But in the metropolis, he is liberated by anonymity. Artists, dreamers, and seekers flocked to such places not only for opportunity but for freedom—the freedom to reinvent, to begin anew, to live without the burden of constant recognition. The big city became their desert, their place of inward searching.

History gives us another image: the poets and thinkers of Paris, the very city Camus himself knew. Within its bustling cafés and crowded boulevards, men like Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir found both the chaos of society and the solitude to shape ideas that shook the world. They were surrounded by thousands, yet alone enough in thought to carve out new philosophies. The paradox of the city-as-desert revealed itself: it offers both the clamor of life and the detachment of anonymity, a strange soil where creativity and rebellion may grow.

But beware, O listener: the desert of the city is not always merciful. In its silence of recognition, many fall into despair. Loneliness lurks even in the most crowded streets, and the anonymity that frees one soul may crush another. Camus knew this tension well, for he saw life itself as absurd, caught between meaning and emptiness. The city can be both a remedy and a poison: it grants solitude, but it may also deepen the hunger for belonging.

The lesson, then, is this: learn to use the city as one uses the desert—not as a place to escape life, but to reflect upon it. Let the anonymity free you from vanity, from the prison of others’ constant judgment. Use the solitude to search your own soul, to wrestle with your own questions, to strengthen yourself for the return to community. The desert of the city should not end in exile, but in renewal, so that when you emerge from its silence, you may re-enter life with clarity and purpose.

So I say to you: if life in society overwhelms you with noise, seek your own desert—even if it lies not in the sands, but in the streets of the metropolis. Walk unseen, listen to your own heart, let the multitude pass you by while you dwell inwardly. And when you return from this hidden solitude, return stronger, freer, and more whole. For the desert, whether of sand or of stone, exists not to consume you, but to remind you of who you are when the world is stripped away.