I never understood Montaigne’s philosophy until I finally devoted the necessary time to the Sebond treatise. I do not refer to it as an essay, because it’s like nothing else in his corpus — a madly sprawling 180 page (or so) piece of theology/theosophy/philosophy that has probably led most Montaigne readers to either skim or skip.

No judgment on that regard, because it’s exactly what I did for my first 10 years with Montaigne, dipping into it tacitly, never knowing what to do with it. Finally when I gave full expression to my confusion, leading me to write three essays about it from different points of view, did Sebond open to me, at least as I understand it.

I won’t recap my thinking about “An Apology for Raymond Sebond” here, I highly suggest you check out my book ESSAI BY ESSAY for my full view of it. Really, it’s a cheap download from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Apple Books or wherever you read ebooks. And it’s also available from multiple vendors as a paperback. So go buy it and read it. Or don’t read it — consider it a minor contribution to my craft.

Up top I said Montaigne’s philosophy, and that’s because it’s easy to have a reading relationship with him without ever thinking about his overall worldview, which shifted throughout the essays anyway. In Sebond, Montaigne settles on a form of radical skepticism that rejects his early stoicism, and helps make the transition to a form of Epicureanism in the final essays. But I promised not to get into the philosophy here, and now I’m breaking my pledge.

As for a companion essay, something reflecting my own life in Montaigne’s ideas, nothing immediately comes to mind without re-reading the essay, and that’s too much of a lift for me today. The essay’s most famous quote — when I play with my cat, how do I know she’s not playing with me? — is all that surfaces. And that feels more like a subject for a song than an essay.

Speaking of which, I’m not getting a lot out of my current songwriting class, which meets again today. I didn’t do this week’s assignment, I large part because I was so busy with my last second trip to East Lansing and didn’t feel like bringing a guitar with me for that.

I’m probably doing this class out of order. I need to get a firmer feel for the guitar again before jumping into this, otherwise I’m going to feel embarrassed week after week about my playing when I should be concentrating on the song craft.

But even the songwriting process is not working for me. I think it’s because the teacher gives us prompts each week, and I hate very specific writing prompts. That feels too much like work for me. Even though Montaigne gives me some form for this project, I’m free to do with it what I please.

So, if I wanted to write a song about not knowing, I couldn’t do so easily — and the result would likely be complicated, which the teacher never likes, he keeps wanting to simplify everything. Maybe songwriting just isn’t for me.

Whether it is or not, I’m not likely to perform any of the songs I write, so why do I bother? And it’s not like this is my first shot at it, it’s my third time trying to make songwriting work for me.

Perhaps I just need to accept that not only are there some things I’m not good at, there are others that I flat out don’t like, and it’s ok to stop and never try again.