Philosophy
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My Summer with Montaigne – “What, have you not lived?”
I am infused with a baby-boomer’s, mid-western ethic to produce. I am not alone in this. It is our culture. As a capitalistic society if we don’t produce and consume, everything will come to a halt, or so we are told. My work ethic has served me well and I enjoy the benefits of my Continue reading
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My Summer with Montaigne—“Que sçais-je”
“He will calm you…You will love him, you will see.” – Flaubert on Montaigne “I have little control over myself and my moods. Chance has more power here than I.” (Book I, Chapter 10) With these two little sentences Montaigne sets a course that is unique, both to him and the world in which he 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. III
“These essays are an attempt to communicate a soul. On this point at least he is explicit. It is not fame that he wants; it is not that men shall quote him in years to come; he is setting up no statue in the market-place; he wishes only to communicate his soul.” Virginia Woolf on 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
...the house I live in... 