The human mind is naturally poetic. We look for analogies constantly to explain the natures of large, complex systems. The mind itself is perhaps our greatest metaphor, seen in different ages as analogous to God, steam machines and, currently, to computers. We have extended that analogy so completely these days that we have, in a…

This is an amusing little dispatch from Montaigne about the postal system of his time, the sport of riding horses as fast as possible, and various methods used to spread messages as quickly as possible. It’s interesting to me we can still watch movies where people sent telegrams and marveled at the speed. Today we…

If you haven’t figured it out yet, I’m exhausted of discussing Montaigne’s view of death. He’s just as obsessed with it as Alvy Singer was in “Annie Hall.” I wonder if Montaigne shared with his mistresses lots of depressing books about death as well. I’m going to jump directly to his conclusion in this essay,…

This is an essay about melancholy. It shows significant maturation and depth in Montaigne’s project that he’s now capable of handling the subject directly. In his early essays, he denied feeling it and stigmatized those who expressed feelings about it. In examining this issue, it’s important to distinguish melancholy from depression. Depression is a medical…

We come to one of Montaigne’s more baffling essays, one with very little within it worth quoting, and that deals mostly with naming the virtues of Julian the Apostate, the notably anti-Christian Roman Emperor. I suppose from this I could jump into a discussion of freedom of religion or tolerance of opposing political or philosophical…

As I mentioned in my essay yesterday, I had a big problem with telling the truth when I was younger. While I am probably a little more skilled than most in telling when another person is lying, I’m also less judgmental towards people who have this problem, because I understand the cost of it all….