The sixteenth-century philosopher Michel de Montaigne once proclaimed, “My art and profession are to live.” Today, Montaigne is best known for popularizing the essay as a literary genre. He explained that his goal in his Essays was to describe himself with utter frankness and honesty. How might your life change if you adopted a few of Montaigne’s timeless habits for modern living?
1. Focus on Character
The goal is to compose our character, not to write books and to win… but to order and tranquility in our conduct. Our great and glorious masterpiece is to live appropriately, stressed Montaigne. The ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus said, “Character is destiny.” The Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius called it the fruit of this life — cultivating a good character and acting for the common good.
2. Embrace Imperfection
For Montaigne, learning to live, in the end, is learning to live with imperfection and even embrace it. What if the first step on the virtuous path is realizing it’s not possible? Seneca wrote to Lucilius that the sage is as rare as the phoenix (once every five hundred years). We must learn to “admonish and forgive ourselves” when we veer off the path.
3. Deprive Death
Many philosophers and spiritual thinkers have stressed that learning to live and learning to die is one and the same. “To practice death is to practice freedom,” said Montaigne. He believed we should begin depriving death of its greatest advantage over us by adopting a way contrary to that common one. We can deprive death of its strangeness by frequenting it often…
4. Learn from Others
None of us should start from scratch when it comes to learning how to live. Montaigne believed it is wise to learn from others. He said, “I quote others in order to better myself.” Socrates advised we look to others as well by employing our time in studying others’ writing so that we can come quickly by what others have labored hard for.
5. Turn to Books
Where do you turn when you have a difficult day? Many wise thinkers advise walking their way to a better mood. But Montaigne turned to books: “When gloomy thoughts attack me, nothing helps me so much as running to my books.” Do you have a favorite book you can turn to in troubled times?
6. Don’t Worry
Montaigne (and Seneca) stressed that we are wired to worry about the future. He said, “My life has been full of terrible misfortunes, most of which never happened.” Similarly, nearly every wisdom tradition has practices designed to help us to live in the present moment. How might your life change if you stopped worrying about the future?
7. Examine Yourself
Montaigne is best known for popularizing the essay as a literary genre. He described his goal in The Essays as representing himself with utter frankness and honesty. Montaigne wrote, “If others examined themselves attentively, as I do, they would find themselves, as I do, full of silliness and nonsense. Get rid of it. I cannot without getting rid of myself. We are all steeped in it, one as much as another, but those aware of it are a little better off — though I don’t know.”
8. Be in the Present
Sarah Blakewell writes in How to Live: A Life of Montaigne: “Life is what happens while you’re making other plans, they said; so philosophy must guide your attention repeatedly back to the place where it belongs — here.” Not getting around the fact that life eventually slips through our hands. As Montaigne put it, “If you fail to grasp life, it will elude you. If you do grasp it, it will elude you anyway.”
9. Live Your Life
What if all the questions on the meaning of life are distractions? Life should be an aim unto itself, observed Montaigne, a purpose unto itself. Figures like Viktor Frankl (and Alan Watts) urge us not to ask questions about the meaning of life but to recognize the “meaning” is our life.
10. Question Everything
Figures like Socrates (and many others) urge us to realize the wisdom of not knowing. “We know accurately only when we know little; doubt grows with knowledge,” said the poet Goethe. Montaigne discovered that nothing is so firmly believed as that which is least known. He lived by the notion, “All I know is that I know nothing, and I’m not even sure about that.” How would your life change if you started questioning your assumptions?
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Thank you for reading; I hope you found something useful.
Until next time, be wise and be well,