Thinkers
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My Year With Montaigne–On Change
“There is nothing that abides and is always the same.” II.12 Let’s talk about change. We acknowledge it, and supposedly, sometimes begrudgingly, accept it. We even have pithy little mantras to toss around to prove we’re onboard with it: The only constant is change. “Change in all things is sweet.” (Aristotle) “Everything flows.” (Heraclitus) “Every Continue reading
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My Summer with Montaigne
Let’s talk about the essays. Montaigne’s book was titled Essais, meaning, in the Middle French of the day, “tests” or ”attempts.” 1. The literary form we refer to today as the “essay” did not exist. E.B. White wrote essays for the New Yorker. Susan Sontag wrote essays. Even I write an essay every once and Continue reading
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My Summer with Montaigne: “Of Anger”
“It seemed to me as if I had myself written the book, in some former life, so sincerely it spoke to my thought and experience.” – Emerson on Montaigne’s Essays Anger “moves us; our hand does not guide it, it guides our hand; it holds us, we do not hold it.” I am slow to Continue reading
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My Summer with Montaigne: “Of Solitude”, pt. II
“The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.” Continue reading
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My Summer With Montaigne: “Of solitude”, pt. I
I thought it fitting to start this little project by considering Montaigne’s writings on solitude. I say this because this summer, like the past half dozen summers, I am again out in the woods and in the mountains. Though this existence isn’t solitude in the extreme, it is a degree of solitude. There are far Continue reading
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Da Capo
“…the pressure, oh the pressure…” Continue reading
...the house I live in... 