Montaigne: To Philosophize is to Learn to Die
Is It Death or Change That We Really Fear?
I’m getting old.
We all have that bathroom mirror moment, don’t we? This morning I examined my face as I shaved. The tug of the razor showed up the loose elasticity of my skin. I leaned in close. My skin isn’t plump as it used to be, it doesn’t have that glow from within that young people have.
It sags a little, it’s etched with lines around my eyes. For the first time in my life my face felt like it was a mask. My body bears the marks of time, its lustre has worn thin.
Inevitably, I thought about death. We all do it, and it’s odd that people squirm at the “morbidity” of it. It’s important to think about.
Michel de Montaigne thought about death a lot. In many ways he thought about it for our benefit. The title of this article was borrowed from his essay of the same name. The philosopher is in turn quoting the Roman writer Cicero. Montaigne made the point that “all the wisdom and reasoning boils down finally to this point: to teach us not to be afraid to die.”
Montaigne was writing from bitter experience. Three tragedies struck him in quick succession. His great friend and confidant the poet Etienne de La Boétie died of the plague in 1563. Not long after, the essayist’s…
