The first instinct when coming upon this essay is to focus on the penis, because Montaigne is obsessed with it. Yes, this is mostly an essay about erectile function and dysfunction and you can enjoy/suffer through that type of reading if you’d like. The fact that those who suffer from this affliction these days could just take a pill takes away some of the need for it.
However, this essay also includes one of Montaigne’s most interesting lines, one I’ve seen quoted by the great French film director Robert Bresson:
We do not command our hair to stand on end with fear nor our flesh to quiver with desire. Our hands often go where we do not tell them; our tongues can fail, our voices congeal, when they want to.
Bresson’s style of directing—which guides actors and actresses to read their lines flatly and not attempt to emote—interested Ryusuke Hamaguchi from the time he was in film school. In his masterpiece “Drive My Car,” which I’m clearly obsessed with, he passed on this directorial style to his protagonist, Kafuku.
Kafuku explains throughout that the text to “Uncle Vanya” is powerful, so actors shouldn’t try to add anything artificial to it, just react. Just as an actor can yield others performing onstage, so too they can yield themselves to the text. The body will know how to react. You don’t need to act.
Embodied consciousness obsesses me—I’m fascinated with all the ways our body acts the way it wants, not the way we direct it. I once saw a client of mine deliver an extremely moving speech that revealed personal loss. Backstage afterwards, he sidled up to me, surprising me with his presence. Immediately, my right arm gently patted him on the back. There was no thought involved in my gesture. I’ve felt in reflection that it wasn’t me patting his back at all.
In another essay, Montaigne says that our every motion reveals us. I believe strongly that inside all of us is a fanatic eager to burst out. Not a political fanatic—quite the opposite—a personal fanatic who wishes to live passionately, immoderately, and unafraid of the opinions of others.
This internal fanatic isn’t always smart. It lives by impulse. And impulse can fool us—witness psychosomatic disorders and its cousin, the placebo effect. Montaigne relayed a story about a woman who thought she had swallowed a pin and felt pain throughout her digestive tract.
One clever fellow concluded that it was all imagination and opinion occasioned by a crust that had jabbed her on the way down; he made her vomit and secretly tossed a bent pin into what she had brought up. That woman believed she had vomited it out and immediately felt relieved of the pain.
Given this, I understand people who do not trust this inner fanatic and do their best to moderate everything they say and do. But I cannot help but think we lose something essential in our lives when we do this. Once you distrust your passionate self, how do you know who you are? How do you decide what matters most to you in life?
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