Halcyon Imagines

Imagining the world through the eyes of Montaigne...

 

"I have never seen a greater monster or miracle than myself", said Montaigne, describing his own poor memory, his ability to solve problems and mediate conflicts without truly getting emotionally involved, his disgust for man's pursuit of lasting fame, and his attempts to detach himself from worldly things to prepare for death.

Montaigne believed that humans cannot attain certainty, and he rejected general and absolute statements of dogma.  However, as Socrates had famously said that the unexamined life was not worth living, and Montaigne eventually found that his only subject matter was himself; so he resolved to try (essayer) to assay himself, his nature, his opinions, his attitudes and reactions, pretending nothing and confessing all.

"I am myself the matter of my book” he wrote; and he knew that he was engaged in producing something wholly original by being so. The result is a classic that has been admired, imitated and enjoyed ever since.

"Je n’enseigne point", Montaigne wrote. "Je raconte"...a lesson well worth remembering.

See also:

• Sarah Bakewell on Montaigne
• Will Self on reading Montaigne for the first time

Imagining what our bodies could still do after we die...

 

 

...it appears that there are quite a few things.

Imagining being altruistic enough to donate one's organs...

 

 

...to total strangers without expecting any payment in return.  The BBC has interviewed a man who's done just this after his wife committed suicide 12 years ago. 

She had been suffering from progressive multiple sclerosis, and when the pain and suffering became too much for her to bear, she took her own life, leading him to a suspended prison sentence - for failing to stop her - and ultimately to the decision to help others to live by doing as much as he possibly could - by giving away one of his kidneys and part of his liver, and now waiting to become a bone marrow donor...

Imagining accepting the inevitability of death...

 

Acceptance of dying is perhaps one of the keys to the acceptance of living. 

Dylan wrote, in To Ramona, that "there's not use in trying to deal with the dying, though I cannot explain that in lights", although ironically, the earlier Dylan from whom he took his name told us to "rage, rage against the dying of the light".