Montaigne retired at 38 just to write and think. This is how he describes that moment in his Essays:
In the year of Christ 1571, at the age of thirty-eight, on the last day of February, his birthday, Michael de Montaigne, long weary of the servitude of the court and of public employments, while still entire, retired to the bosom of the learned virgins, where in calm and freedom from all cares he will spend what little remains of his life, now more than half run out. If the fates permit, he will complete this abode, this sweet ancestral retreat; and he has consecrated it to his freedom, tranquillity, and leisure.
I have just read the 1.350 page volume of his essays. It's a mix between philosophical thoughts and personal story-telling. Without any order he writes about things divine and human, but mostly, he does it about himself.
In the year of Christ 1571, at the age of thirty-eight, on the last day of February, his birthday, Michael de Montaigne, long weary of the servitude of the court and of public employments, while still entire, retired to the bosom of the learned virgins, where in calm and freedom from all cares he will spend what little remains of his life, now more than half run out. If the fates permit, he will complete this abode, this sweet ancestral retreat; and he has consecrated it to his freedom, tranquillity, and leisure.
I have just read the 1.350 page volume of his essays. It's a mix between philosophical thoughts and personal story-telling. Without any order he writes about things divine and human, but mostly, he does it about himself.
I'm exhausted. What did I learn? Well, I learned about the nobleness of thinking and the joy of writing. To record your thoughts is like gymnastics of the mind.The idea is: let your mind flow and record whatever thoughts pass through your brain. Let's call it stream-of-consciousness. Don't try to edit too much, just let your thoughts go by and record them as they come. The style is not important, the freshness is.
That's precisely the purpose of this blog, dear reader, which I have named essays on my life: to reflect, to write my thoughts down, trying to fix them somehow. Like Montaigne I'd like to take refuge on the bosom of the learned virgins . Unfortunately, I have no castle to retire to, nor I have his fortune to lean on, the only thing that I promise is to do my best to write this blog while I carry on with my life.
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