The title of this Montaigne essay — To Philosophize is to Prepare to Die — isn’t Montaigne’s thought, it’s a paraphrase of CIcero. This is one of his most densely packed collection of quotes, nearly three dozen of them, many from Lucretius. And in sum, they don’t exactly validate the Cicero quote that frames it.

Perhaps he couldn’t say it directly, but I think Montaigne is implying in this essay the point I made in the last, that we are all equal in death. Most of the quotes support this argument from a variety of viewpoints, this one from Lucretius says it most plainly:

Do you not know that when death comes, there’ll be

No other you to mourn your memory,

And stand above you prostrate?

Prepared by philosophy or not, we’re all going to die. Some wish to be memorialized in stone, others want their works to carry on, still more want charitable works to speak their legacy. One parlance of our times is the irritating phrase “generational wealth,” as in money that can sustain your children, grandchildren and beyond. Great, you’ve prepaid for their addiction clinics — well done.

In the end, we just reach the end. And I’m as guilty of sentimentalizing this as anyone. One of my favorite movies, Akira Kurosawa’s “Ikiru,” is about a curmudgeonly civil servant finding a way to create a socially-positive legacy for his community when he dies. I’m not arguing against the validity of such thinking, I’m entertained and moved by it.

What I do believe, and I think Montaigne was saying something similar, is that we miss an opportunity to understand how we are the same as all humans (and every living creature, for that matter) by creating elaborate systems and metaphysics around our deaths. Some religions even seem to be saying that life is nothing but a test and preparation for the real deal, our afterlives.

Maybe those rules help people live less selfish lives (although that’s debatable.) And maybe the peace of mind of thinking death isn’t an end is valuable in itself. I still tend to think Montaigne has it right — we’re better off understanding that death is coming for us whenever it wants to arrive.

He doesn’t add that we should therefore feel gratitude and celebrate the lives we have, but that’s what I believe. It’s certainly part of Montaigne’s closing chapter, where he looks back on the value of experience. Experience is really nothing more than life and our memories of it.

No one is going to reach the end of the board game and be declared a winner of the Game of Life. (Incidentally, of all board games from my youth, I always considered that one to have the most unsatisfying resolution.)

I like to see it this way: every day we’re alive gives us the opportunity to look back on where we’ve been and what we’ve done and provides us another chance to do some aspect of it better this time. Life is an endless experience of do-overs. Your days don’t have to be literally the same, as in the movie “Groundhog’s Day,” to provide similar circumstances, a series of things that look and feel familiar.

The real mourning and sadness of life isn’t our own demise, it’s the loss of those we love and miss. Our death will create similar empty spaces. If people want to study philosophy or religion to better appreciate those around them and learn how to mourn those we lose, then I think that is time well spent.

But as for preparing for our own final days? What’s the point? Better to just keep living and doing our best to enjoy the experience, helping fellow travelers on their own paths, because when life is gone, it’s gone.