How to Live

In the summer of 1588, as religious wars ravaged France and fanaticism consumed Europe, a fifty-five-year-old nobleman sat peacefully in his circular tower library, writing about the simple pleasure of watching his cat play. Michel de Montaigne had just survived imprisonment in the Bastille, witnessed political assassinations, and navigated the treacherous waters of civil war, yet his pen moved with serene confidence across the page. He was not composing treatises on theology or statecraft, but intimate reflections on friendship, death, education, and the art of being human. In an age obsessed with absolute truths, Montaigne dared to embrace uncertainty and contradiction as the very essence of authentic living.

Born into the French Renaissance but shaped by decades of religious warfare, Montaigne created something entirely revolutionary: the personal essay. Through his wandering thoughts and unflinching self-examination, he pioneered a form of writing that was part philosophy, part autobiography, and part practical wisdom for navigating an uncertain world. From his pages, readers discover not only the fascinating story of a man who learned to live authentically in turbulent times, but also timeless insights about the value of intellectual humility, the importance of genuine friendship, and the profound satisfaction that comes from honest self-knowledge. His approach to existence offers enduring guidance for anyone seeking to understand themselves more deeply while remaining engaged with the complexities of human society.

Michel Eyquem de Montaigne entered the world in February 1533 at his family's château in southwestern France, born into an era of unprecedented intellectual transformation. His father Pierre embodied the ambitious spirit of the Renaissance, having risen from merchant origins to purchase nobility and determined that his son should receive the finest possible education. In a remarkable pedagogical experiment, Pierre arranged for young Michel to learn Latin as his mother tongue, spoken by specially hired tutors before he ever heard French. This extraordinary foundation opened the classical world to Montaigne as naturally as breathing, allowing him to converse fluently with Cicero, Seneca, and Plutarch while other children struggled with basic conjugations.

The boy's formal education at the prestigious Collège de Guyenne in Bordeaux further immersed him in Renaissance humanism. His teachers, many of them Protestant refugees fleeing religious persecution, brought fresh perspectives on ancient texts and innovative approaches to learning. Here Montaigne encountered the great philosophical schools that would shape his worldview: Stoicism with its emphasis on inner tranquility, Epicureanism with its pursuit of genuine pleasure, and Skepticism with its healthy doubt about human certainty. The school's emphasis on drama and rhetoric taught him the power of language, while its international atmosphere exposed him to the diversity of human customs and beliefs.

Perhaps the most formative aspect of his education was its gentleness. Unlike most children of his era, who were beaten into submission and forced to memorize endless facts, Montaigne was awakened each morning by soft music and encouraged to follow his natural curiosity. This humane approach fostered in him a lifelong love of learning and deep respect for individual temperament. He would later write that education should nourish the mind like gentle rain, not batter it into submission like a violent storm.

The young man who emerged from this unique educational experiment possessed both the intellectual tools of a Renaissance scholar and the psychological freedom to use them creatively. He had learned to think independently while remaining deeply connected to classical wisdom. Most importantly, he developed what would become his greatest gift: the ability to observe human nature with both compassion and clarity, seeing himself and others as endlessly fascinating subjects worthy of patient study. This combination of classical learning and personal freedom created a mind uniquely equipped to navigate the intellectual and political turbulence of his era while maintaining an essentially democratic sympathy for people of all stations and beliefs.

In 1557, Montaigne began his career as a magistrate in the Bordeaux parlement, where he encountered the most transformative relationship of his life. Among his colleagues was Étienne de La Boétie, a brilliant humanist scholar eighteen months his senior who had already gained fame for his treatise analyzing how tyrants maintain power through voluntary submission. Their friendship transcended ordinary social relationships, becoming what Montaigne would later describe as a meeting of souls that defied rational explanation: "If you press me to tell why I loved him, I feel that this cannot be expressed, except by answering: Because it was he, because it was I."

For four precious years, the two friends worked side by side, sharing books, ideas, and dreams of literary collaboration that would reshape French intellectual life. La Boétie's influence on Montaigne was profound and civilizing, challenging his natural tendency toward skepticism and withdrawal. The older friend possessed a more systematic mind and stronger moral convictions, serving as both companion and mentor. Under La Boétie's guidance, Montaigne began to see public service not as a burden but as an opportunity to put philosophical principles into practice, while their evening conversations about literature and politics provided the kind of intimate intellectual partnership that Renaissance humanists idealized.

Catastrophe struck in August 1563 when La Boétie fell gravely ill with dysentery. Montaigne remained at his friend's bedside throughout the agonizing final days, witnessing La Boétie's struggle between philosophical composure and human anguish. The dying man spoke of needing "a place" in the world, a haunting phrase that revealed his fear of dissolution despite all his Stoic preparation. Montaigne tried desperately to comfort him but could only watch helplessly as his dearest companion slipped away. The death devastated Montaigne more completely than any other experience in his life, leaving him feeling that everything had become "nothing but dark and dreary night."

Yet from this profound sorrow came unexpected creative fruit. Determined to honor La Boétie's memory, Montaigne began the literary work that would eventually become his Essays. He started by editing his friend's manuscripts and writing an account of his death, but gradually these acts of devotion evolved into something more personal and ambitious. The Essays became, in essence, the conversation with La Boétie that death had cut short, a lifelong dialogue between the living and the dead. This ongoing internal conversation would produce one of the world's great works of literature, transforming private grief into universal wisdom about friendship, mortality, and the art of living authentically in the face of loss.

Montaigne's mature years coincided with France's devastating Wars of Religion, a series of conflicts that tore the kingdom apart along Catholic and Protestant lines. While extremists on both sides claimed divine sanction for their violence, Montaigne maintained a carefully considered philosophical stance that his enemies dismissed as mere politique opportunism. Drawing on his beloved Stoic authors and his own observations of human nature, he argued that wisdom lay in accepting what could not be changed while working patiently to improve what could be influenced. His skepticism about absolute certainties led him to question whether theological disputes justified the destruction of civilized society.

This moderate position was tested during his reluctant service as mayor of Bordeaux from 1581 to 1585, when the city faced threats from hostile armies, plague outbreaks, and internal religious divisions. Montaigne's strategy involved avoiding inflammatory rhetoric while quietly building bridges between opposing factions. He worked closely with royal officials to maintain order through negotiation rather than force, and when Catholic extremists attempted a coup, he helped organize their peaceful expulsion rather than their execution. This approach reflected his belief that mercy was more effective than severity in healing social wounds, though it earned him criticism from zealots who demanded more passionate commitment to their causes.

The tension between public duty and private inclination created some of the most psychologically complex passages in Montaigne's writing. He wrote honestly about his reluctance to take on responsibilities that interfered with his studies and his preference for books over politics. Yet he also recognized that complete withdrawal from civic life was neither possible nor desirable for someone of his station and abilities. His solution was to serve conscientiously but without the consuming ambition or emotional investment that he saw destroying other public figures, maintaining what he called a "back shop" of the mind that remained free even during periods of intense external engagement.

This balanced approach was severely tested during the plague outbreak that struck Bordeaux in 1585, near the end of his second mayoral term. When the epidemic began, Montaigne was at his estate preparing for the ceremonial transfer of power to his successor. Faced with the choice of entering the plague-stricken city to fulfill his final official duties or remaining safely at home, he chose caution, ultimately staying away after consulting with remaining city officials. This decision would later be criticized by nineteenth-century commentators who expected more heroic self-sacrifice from their historical figures.

Montaigne's own account of this episode reveals his characteristic honesty about human motivations and limitations. He neither glorified his decision nor apologized for it, instead analyzing the complex calculations involved in balancing duty to others against responsibility for one's own life and family. This incident perfectly illustrates his broader philosophy of accepting human imperfection rather than striving for impossible ideals, demonstrating that even conscientious public service must be tempered by practical wisdom and self-knowledge.

Montaigne's journey through Germany, Switzerland, and Italy from 1580 to 1581 represented both a literal voyage and a metaphorical exploration of human diversity. Ostensibly undertaken for his health, as he suffered from painful kidney stones and hoped the famous spas might provide relief, the trip became an extended meditation on cultural difference and the art of living. He kept a detailed travel journal, recording everything from local customs and architectural marvels to his own physical symptoms and emotional responses to new experiences, creating a remarkable document of Renaissance travel and self-observation.

The journey revealed Montaigne's extraordinary openness to otherness and his commitment to suspending judgment in favor of understanding. In Germany, he observed Protestant religious services with genuine curiosity rather than Catholic prejudice. In Italy, he attended a circumcision ceremony in Rome's Jewish quarter, visited brothels without moral condemnation, and witnessed an exorcism with scientific detachment. This willingness to observe without immediately categorizing experiences as good or evil reflected his broader philosophical commitment to understanding the world as it actually exists rather than as he thought it should be.

Travel also provided Montaigne with a laboratory for testing his ideas about human adaptability and the relativity of customs. He made a point of eating local foods, following local practices, and conversing with people from all social levels. He discovered that what seemed natural and inevitable in France was merely one way among many of organizing human life, reinforcing his skepticism about universal truths while revealing the remarkable flexibility of human nature. People could be happy living in ways that seemed strange or even repugnant to outsiders, suggesting that there might be many valid approaches to the good life.

The interruption of his travels by his election as mayor forced Montaigne to return to France, but the experience had already transformed his writing. The essays he composed after his return show greater confidence, broader perspective, and deeper psychological insight than his earlier work. He had tested his philosophical ideas against the reality of different cultures and found them largely sound, but he had also discovered new complexities and contradictions that enriched his understanding of himself and others.

The process of writing itself became Montaigne's primary means of self-discovery and his most significant innovation. He famously declared that he was "consubstantial" with his book, meaning that he and his essays were made of the same substance and could not be separated. Writing allowed him to capture the actual movement of his mind, the flow of thoughts and feelings as they responded to reading, conversation, memory, and immediate experience. Unlike other authors who sought to present polished, consistent arguments, Montaigne embraced digression, contradiction, and the kind of associative thinking that characterizes genuine mental life, creating a new literary form that invited readers to follow his thinking process rather than simply accept his conclusions.

Montaigne's death in 1592 marked only the beginning of his extraordinary influence on Western thought and literature. His Essays were immediately recognized as unprecedented, combining classical learning with personal revelation, philosophical depth with practical wisdom, and serious moral inquiry with genuine entertainment. Writers from Shakespeare to Rousseau, from Emerson to Virginia Woolf, found in Montaigne a model for honest self-examination and a guide to living authentically in an uncertain world. His influence extended far beyond literature, helping to shape modern concepts of tolerance, individual rights, and the value of personal experience as a source of knowledge.

The enduring appeal of Montaigne's work lies partly in its refusal to provide easy answers to life's fundamental questions. Instead of offering a systematic philosophy or a set of rules for living, he demonstrated a way of thinking about problems that remains flexible and responsive to changing circumstances. His skepticism prevented him from becoming dogmatic, while his fundamental humanity kept him from falling into cynicism or despair. He showed that it was possible to live fully and meaningfully while acknowledging the limits of human knowledge and the inevitability of suffering and death.

Montaigne's contribution to the development of modern consciousness can hardly be overstated. He pioneered the kind of introspective analysis that would later be developed by psychologists and psychoanalysts, anticipating insights about the unconscious mind, the role of memory in shaping identity, and the complex relationship between reason and emotion. His recognition that the self is multiple and contradictory rather than unified and consistent prefigured postmodern theories of identity while remaining grounded in lived experience rather than abstract speculation.

Perhaps most importantly for contemporary readers, Montaigne offered a model of intellectual humility and tolerance that remains urgently relevant in our own age of ideological polarization. His ability to hold multiple perspectives simultaneously, to question his own assumptions, and to find common ground with people very different from himself provides a valuable alternative to the rigid thinking that leads to conflict and violence. His famous question "What do I know?" continues to challenge readers to examine their own certainties and remain open to new possibilities.

The practical wisdom embedded in Montaigne's essays continues to resonate with readers seeking guidance on how to live well in an uncertain world. His insights into friendship, marriage, parenting, work, and aging offer perspectives that are both timeless and surprisingly modern. His acceptance of human imperfection, his celebration of ordinary pleasures, and his commitment to authentic self-expression provide antidotes to the perfectionism and performance anxiety that characterize much of contemporary life, while his example of thoughtful engagement with the world offers hope for those seeking meaning and purpose in their own existence.

Michel de Montaigne's greatest achievement was demonstrating that honest self-examination, combined with intellectual humility and practical wisdom, offers the most reliable foundation for a meaningful and authentic life. Through his revolutionary Essays, he proved that we need not choose between deep personal reflection and active engagement with the world, between accepting uncertainty and living with clear purpose, or between acknowledging our limitations and striving for genuine understanding and growth.

From Montaigne's example, we can learn to embrace our contradictions rather than trying to resolve them artificially, to question our assumptions while still acting decisively when circumstances require it, and to find profound meaning in the ordinary experiences of daily life rather than waiting for extraordinary achievements or revelations. His work reminds us that the most valuable insights often come not from abstract theorizing but from careful attention to our own experience and honest reflection on what we discover there. For anyone seeking to live more authentically and thoughtfully in our complex modern world, Montaigne's essays remain an inexhaustible source of wisdom, companionship, and practical guidance for the eternal human challenge of learning how to live well.