How do we come to grips with a world that allows for natural disaster, state-sanctioned injustice, genocide, disease, human trafficking, witch hunts, and all the other bad things that happen to good people? The problem of evil is at the heart of Voltaire’s satirical novella and the musical it inspired. The absurd plot twists and dizzying pace of Voltaire’s storytelling, in combination with Bernstein’s sparkling score, invite us to consider the human condition, but don’t give us time to get too depressed about it. As we follow Candide on his whirlwind tour of the Old and New Worlds, we see a lot of problems, and we meet a lot of people who have developed some kind of philosophical system that claims to make sense of a flawed universe. But Panglossian optimism is quickly shown to be ridiculous, and Martin’s pessimistic view of the world isn’t allowed to stand unchallenged, either.

So what is the answer? Why does evil exist? Why do people suffer? At the end of the story, Candide hasn’t come any closer to drawing a satisfactory conclusion, and neither have his companions (with the exception of Pangloss, who stubbornly clings to optimism). Candide can’t explain the world, so he turns his attention to what he can do—and encourages his friends to do the same.

Today, in our hyperconnected world, we’re more aware than ever of human suffering, and we have plenty of platforms for philosophizing it. The question is, what are we going to do? What is the garden that each of us will cultivate? Candide challenges us to get to work.