Albert Camus did not approach the act of writing lightly. Although he gets lumped in with a certain class of French intellectuals whose headiness got in their way, Camus used a clean and light touch in his work. Any of us who have gone back to his unnervingly relevant novel The Plague these last few weeks have rediscovered just how brisk and energetic he can be.

But Camus also thought risk was a necessary part of the writing life. In his lesser-known 1958 tract Create Dangerously, Camus stated that the role of the artist was to place themselves directly in the toss and tumult of modern life. To invite rather than shy away from risk and critique:

Every publication is a deliberate act, and that act makes us vulnerable to the passions of a century that forgives nothing.

If that was true in the 20th century, it is doubly so now.

Write like nothing else matters. What else makes sense?