Montaigne

Many years ago I had the good fortune to find a copy of Michel de Montaigne’s book of essays at a garage sale or the dump’s recycling shop or some like location.  I have happily rediscovered it in one of those attic boxes full of stuff that we all say ‘I might need this one day.’  And it is true: I do need it to remind me of the delight that can be had by reading an inquisitive, far-reaching, utterly unpretentious yet self-appraising mind, a small piece of which, by the reading, must have rubbed off on me. 

   

His book of essays gives me a clue, or provides for me another piece to the puzzle of who I am, for I am always, like him, engaged in the occupations of observation outwardly and self-appraisal, but not self-preoccupation, inwardly (“Let a man examine himself…” 1 Corinthians 11:28). One—observation—influences the other—self-appraisal.

This essay, for example, was precipitated by my yesterday’s essay where I disparaged the notion of MY (me, myself, I) a preoccupation with the self that I find so distastefully proclaimed in public by others but in its refined form of ‘self-appraisal’ find so privately necessary for myself.  Unlike him, my treatment of anything—even the most serious of subjects—regretfully is not done with such good humor.  Like him, my essays are not confined by the titles I give them.  Again, like Montaigne, I think of myself as a browser because, by my (and his) experience, a couple of interesting thoughts or stories in one book or current event will always remind me of something or someone smarter, or more interesting in another book, and I open that.

Though he is something of a gadfly, he is also a visionary; he lands on and expresses some really profound and useful thoughts: “In a truly loving relationship—which I have experienced—rather than drawing the one I love to me I give myself to him,” he says.  “Not merely do I prefer to do him good than to have him do good to me, I would even prefer that he did good to himself rather than to me: it is when he does good to himself that he does most good to me.”

He is, of course, a moralist.  But reading him is like talking with a very old friend.  He is not pompous for he readily admits, as most men should, that inconsistency is an identifying psychological characteristic of human beings in general. “We are all a patchwork,” he says.  “We become so many different people in ourselves, at so many different times.”  “There is as much difference between us and ourselves as between us and others.”  He candidly despairs of making any sense of himself:  He writes, “All contradictions may be found in me. . . bashful, insolent; chaste, lascivious; talkative, taciturn; tough, delicate; clever, stupid; surly, affable; lying, truthful; learned, ignorant; liberal, miserly and prodigal.” 

He reminds me of another great man taken from his own scriptural confession: “My heart exclaimeth: O wretched man that I am!  Yea, my heart sorroweth because of my flesh; my soul grieveth because of mine iniquities.  I am encompassed about, because of the temptations and the sins which do so easily beset me.  And when I desire to rejoice, my heart groaneth because of my sins; nevertheless, I know in whom I have trusted.  My God hath been my support; he hath led me through mine afflictions in the wilderness . . . he hath filled me with his love . . . he hath heard my cry. . .” (2 Nephi 4:17-23).

Montaigne (like Nephi) is without question one of my heroes, another giant in my pantheon of visionaries, yet a man, like all of us, who puts on his pants one leg at a time.  What an encouragement!