Montaigne took some risks by taking a stand against divination — it was core to the folk religious faith then, and still probably now. But he didn’t exactly dismiss it. He concludes his essay that way:

The daemon of Socrates was perhaps a certain impulse of the will that came to him without awaiting the advice of his reason. In a well-purified soul such as his, prepared by a continual exercise of wisdom and virtue, it is likely that these inclinations, although instinctive and undigested, were always important and worth following. Everyone feels within himself some likeness of such stirrings of a prompt, vehement, and accidental opinion. It is my business to give them some authority, since I give so little to our wisdom. And I have had some as weak in reason as violent in persuasiveness—or in dissuasiveness, as was more ordinary in Socrates—Bby which I let myself be carried away so usefully and fortunately that they might be judged to have in them something of divine inspiration.

Montaigne sees this divination as something refined and internal, what we now consider our intuition. Intuition is tied to emotion and activity in the right hemisphere of the brain. Cultures tend to swing wildly between dismissing the value of it altogether and seeing it as a near human superpower.

According to some studies I’ve seen, hunches of even the most intuitive people are right no more than 60 percent of the time. So it would be foolish to just hand yourself over to gut feelings. But it would be just as foolish to dismiss an internal system that could give you that kind of cognitive head start, a sense of the right thing to do, before you’ve put any rational thought or evidence to it.

Ignoring the right brain never seems to go well for me. It tends to argue with the left brain quite a bit when it senses a conflict, reminding me of my core emotions and often hours later manifesting physical symptoms brought on by my suppressing.

One of the consistent ways my right brain rebels is by reminding me of people and things that I miss. Like a lot of people, when something or someone in my life gets too much to manage, I tend to create distance. This never feels great for my right brain, whether it’s missing watching movies or playing music or having contact with someone I like.

As I get old, I’m trying to adopt a new way of managing these feelings, which I call modest reintroduction. That means trying to bring back people and things into my life with lower expectations. Play music without a goal of performing live with a band, for example. Write these essays without a goal of putting out another book.

I could elaborate more now, but I’ll leave that for future essays. Instead I’m going to end with another quote from the music of Adrianne Lenker, this from the final verse of the song “Masterpiece” by her band Big Thief. This summer, I’m dealing with issues involving old friends, an old mother (who turns 89 tomorrow), an (ailing) dog and (a likewise ailing) brother, so it has special meaning to me:

Old friends, old mothers, dogs and brothers

There’s only so much letting go

You can ask someone to do

So I keep you by my side

I will not give you to the tide

I’ll even walk you in my stride, Marie