Tag: The Essays of Montaigne

oil painting of a thoughtful man sitting in a room

Journal (It’s not me—it’s the world)

Published on by Maciej Modzelewski2 Comments

Montaigne said that as our birth brought us the birth of all things, so in our death is the death of all things included. But with that in mind, why would I trouble myself with death if it’s not me who died—it’s the world that ceased to exist? And shouldn’t those rather laugh at the end of this spectacle who cried at the beginning, especially if they might have already outlived their purpose?

Here, in the Western world, death has a particularly bad press—if mentioned at all—but you can’t avoid it if you ask about a happy life, since, to follow Ovid in Metamorphoses, we should all look forward to our last day: no one can be called happy till he is dead and buried (from The Essays of Montaigne—Volume 03 by Michel de Montaigne, translated by Charles Cotton). But sometimes, just like everyone else, I ask myself: Was—or is, as I’m still alive—my life a happy one? The problem is, I’m not even sure what that actually means—a happy life. I would say adequate. It’s like the dust on my desk—sometimes I wipe it off, but most of the time I get along.

We value human life exactly because it’s so frail and because it eventually ends—because of death. What would happen to that respect once death was gone?

an oil painting in the style of René Magritte showing a faceless couple ready to get married

Journal (Love is blind)

Published on by Maciej Modzelewski3 Comments

Montaigne said that “in all republics, a good share of the government has ever been referred to chance. Plato, in the civil regimen that he models according to his own fancy, leaves to it the decision of several things of very great importance, and will, amongst other things, that marriages should be appointed by lot;” (Montaigne, 2004).

Let’s think about that last part for a moment. Apart from the fact that these were supposed to be temporary marriages made at festivals to orchestrate eugenic breeding (Brake, 2021), the whole idea is not without some merit. Our Western culture embraces the idea of marriage for love, but keeping in mind that there is a good chance that it ends in divorce or makes couples unhappy over time (DePaulo, 2013), I’m not convinced that it actually works very well. There is a saying in my native language that perfectly fits that hunch: love is blind, and marriage is the best ophthalmologist.

So why not leave the whole affair in the hands of fate for a change? Who knows, maybe we’ll have better luck in this case than with choices made under the influence of the hormonal storm in our brains. Of course, I realise that this is not actually feasible outside of a thought experiment, and I can see many things that could and most likely would go wrong—I’m not that naive—but I also have a feeling that there is a chance for something good in this as well. Besides, we already use dating app algorithms for matching, so is this really that much of a difference?

Because what is the alternative? Suffer in silence with this stranger whom we call our spouse out of habit, or finally come to terms with the idea that marriage is only a temporary matter and establish this state of affairs legally by creating fixed-term marriage contracts, for example, for a decade, with the possibility of extending them for another period if both parties wish so.

References:
Brake, Elizabeth, “Marriage and Domestic Partnership”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2021 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2021/entries/marriage/
DePaulo, Bella, “Marriage and Happiness: 18 Long-Term Studies”, Psychology Today (15 May 2013), https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/living-single/201303/marriage-and-happiness-18-long-term-studies
Montaigne, Michel de, “Essays of Michel de Montaigne—Complete”, Project Gutenberg (2004), W.C. Hazlitt (ed.), C. Cotton (transl.), https://gutenberg.org/files/3600/3600-h/3600-h.htm

oil pastels painting of a woman reading at the table

Journal (Never lonely)

Published on by Maciej Modzelewski1 Comment

Reading, generally speaking, is a solitary endeavour, and apart from an occasional marginalia or folded page corner, there is very little that connects you with other readers—nothing beyond the awareness that other lonely souls have also touched these pages. Or so you might think.

Although I love the unique sensation of touching paper, I also appreciate the new opportunities offered by modern technology. For example, my e-book reader displays highlights made by other readers along with information about how many of them found the particular fragment important—the following quote, for instance, has been highlighted fifty-one times: “So it seems that the soul, being transported and discomposed, turns its violence upon itself, if not supplied with something to oppose it, and therefore always requires an object at which to aim, and whereon to act.” (from The Essays of Montaigne—Volume 02 by Michel de Montaigne, in translation of Charles Cotton)

And just like that, I know that there are fifty-one kindred spirits somewhere with whom I can connect in thought. So perhaps when you read, you are alone. But never lonely.