-
My Year with Montaigne–On Mindfulness
“Montaigne practiced a form of what we today call mindfulness through his essay writing. His quest in writing was to find out how to be ‘fully human” (sic) he tried to recognize when his thoughts went to ‘extraneous incidents.” He would then work to bring this thinking back to the here and now and the Continue reading
-
My Year with Montaigne–a “Spiritual Teacher”
“Lend yourself to others, but give yourself to yourself.” To recap: My use of the word spiritual: the means by which the individual strives to be a better human being. To recap: Montaigne’s discipline of attention is extraordinary, especially related to self-reflection. Nietzsche said that all philosophy reflects the philosopher’s biography.1. One of the aversions Continue reading
-
My Year with Montaigne–a Spiritual Teacher?
“A wise man never loses anything, if he has himself.” I was recently talking with a dear friend, a person on a deep spiritual journey with whom I have shared many books and ideas. We see one another only a couple times a year, but one of our standard catch-up questions is, “How is your Continue reading
-
My Year With Montaigne: Of Time & Attention
“We must run through the bad and settle on the good.” III.13 Earlier in this series I discussed Montaigne’s famous chapter, “That to Philosophize is to Learn to Die.” Without being redundant, that chapter reflects the young Montaigne’s Stoic influences. Death awaits us, and to deeply contemplate this reality is to take away its power. Continue reading
-
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
-
My Summer with Montaigne—Update.
Montaigne, “the greatest writer of any time, anywhere.” Orson Welles First a little housekeeping. With Labor Day behind us, you are perhaps wondering about my summer project, is it coming to an end? After all, I titled it, “My Summer with Montaigne”. Truth be told, I feel as if I’ve hardly scratched the surface. Continue reading
About doug
You might say that I’m philosopher in the classical sense, that is, “One who loves knowledge.” That sounds awfully pretentious, but I don’t know how else to put it. I’ve spent my life chasing questions, diving into wisdom traditions ancient and modern, including the philosophical schools of Existentialism, Pragmatism, and the ancient Greeks, as well as several of the Eastern traditions, principally Zen Buddhism and Taoism. Admittedly, I’m no expert on anything, just a curious pilgrim.
Categories
- Adventure
- Books
- Creativity
- Curiosity
- Death
- Dogs
- Family
- Happiness
- Life
- Literature
- Memoir
- Nature
- Philosophy
- Photography
- Reading
- Technology
- The Examined Life
- The infinity of ideas
- Thinkers
- Travel
- Uncategorized
- Wisdom
- Writers
- Writing
Doug’s writings elsewhere:
...the house I live in... 