A Brief Reflection on a Life in Looking (or, Thoughts After a Year With Montaigne)

prefaced with the transcript of a voice memo I made high at nineteen

(Alright)

Yeah man like I think I’ve given up on owning things. Like I don’t like to own things, you know? It feels almost…garish.

I think it’s a little cultural, I think it’s American. We train ourselves to keep wanting. I want a million things–like, it’ll make us happy. Maybe it makes people happy. I don’t want a million things though, right? Makes my life feel crowded.

I have this saying I say, it’s “sell everything, move to Bali.” I’m selling everything. I’ve sold a lot. I like it a lot. It’s freeing. Um, I make a lot of money. That’s not what it’s about. It’s like, I’m not tied to anything anymore, you know? It’s nice. You can travel–pack up and go anywhere and stay. I like to travel. I have to. Like, every two weeks I just pack up and go somewhere. I don’t tell anyone either. I have to, though, like I need it.

Um. I hear a lot about memories, though. People think it’s like, things help you hold memories or whatever but they’re wrong. If you lose your memory that thing is just a thing. Like, you gotta–you gotta trust yourself. It lives in you. It lives in me, like, yeah. It lives in me. 

I’m not going to Bali, though. I got school soon, in two–three weeks. Someday, though, like I want to. Even if it’s only for a little bit or a summer or something.

I’m young, you know? I forget that a lot I think, like I did a lot of things premature. I think that’s normal though, you know? I think that’s okay. But I haven’t lived a lot of life. I don’t know how much I got left. Um. Sometimes I feel like it might not be that much though.

I guess I’m just gonna tell you to have fun, you know. Just like, it’s not that serious. Gotta have a good time. And see a lot. Yeah. Always be moving, you know. Pack light. That’s what I been getting at this whole thing. Pack light.

- Transcript of a voice memo I made high at nineteen years old, July 2023

Nearly one year having passed, I find it not only appropriate but rather imperative to recall my first curiosities upon encountering the essays of Montaigne—those I admittedly still find myself in constant consideration of—so that I may at least attempt to focus on my forthcoming thesis.  As I began my close study of the Essays, I found myself marvelling at the way Montaigne wrote as though he was a tourist to himself, seeing emotions and conversations as experientially as one may see travelling, yet focusing very rarely on physical experience itself. I figured then, at least in some minute capacity, I was on the right track attempting to document my own life through the form of personal essays. Nevertheless, I found (and continue to often find still) myself riddled with a dire shame when faced with the opportunity to share my work, to put it out there for people to walk around in. It would be humiliating if no one read it. It would be humiliating if people did. 

There is, at least in the states, an embarrassment that comes with the act of tourism. We do not want to be vulnerable. I think we fear it–at least I know I do. There seems to be a constant influx of media proving this: “Here’s what cool girls wear in…” or “top ten non-touristy spots for your trip to…” In its essence, I understand the desire for comfortability. Even in cities I have lived in, places I have visited all my life, pulling out maps brings a flush of shame to my face. Over the past weekend I found myself in New York and there was a brief moment as I looked around Washington Square Park where I thought to myself, “Thank goodness I’m dressed like everyone else here.” I carried my unfamiliarity like a deathbed secret: I don’t know every square inch of the world. This shame is seen even on a smaller scale: you are a poser if you casually listen to a band, if you love one radio hit. You are a tryhard if you say you like an author and have not read a large portion of their body of work. It’s hard to get into things, to develop an interest publicly unless you have secretly established it for a lengthy period beforehand. You want to be a local to everything. We may feel out of place but we cannot look it. And thus, how difficult must it be then to share the ways in which you explore your own self, those in which you are discovering more that you are stating? 

The first essay of Montaigne I fell in love with was On the Cannibals, in which he describes at length the world of a tribe of “barbarians” (his words) living on a small island off the coast of Spain (now believed to be Brazil). This essay became the topic of last year’s thesis, and may well become the topic of next year’s–my senior project, the culmination of my work at St. John’s. While On the Cannibals is rich in cultural subject matter, one of the most striking things about the essay to me was something so easily missable: Montaigne is writing this not about his own experience, but that of a friend. The essay is relaying information that has already been relayed, and because of this, On the Cannibals is tinged with grief–every thought Montaigne makes of the cannibals is limited, and he seems to become increasingly aware of the fact that it will stay that way no matter what. Even if he were to go to the island himself, it would be that way. He’ll never be a local, but rather than fear over that, it saddens him.

Montaigne cannot help but look at the cannibals’ lives in comparison to what his friend has stated them to be, as well as to what his own life looks like–he has no way to attempt to understand anything without some bias, no matter how infinitely small or personal, and in that he finds himself alone, despite having his own cultural background. There are points where it seems Montaigne is unclear how he should look at the progresses his society has made–the cannibal lifestyle is simpler than his own in terms of advancement and they have very little, but they work hard to share bounty with their community, and in that, they are happy. Montaigne’s grapple with this leads me to wonder if he is not.

Montaigne very rarely writes about material possessions, save for to tell his readers that they weigh us down. Only a semester prior to reading On the Cannibals, I sold most of my personal belongings and decided a life of exploration was more valuable to me than a life where I am tied to anyplace. Things–stuff–whatever you want to see possessions acted as an anchor for me. More simply, I got my shit out of my mom’s basement without having to be asked. In my mind, this act and that of reading Montaigne go hand in hand. It may simply be because the timeline of my life places these events in close proximity to each other, but I also find myself recalling Montaigne’s use of the word “bastardized” in On the Cannibals in regards to his own society while comparing it to the cannibals’. I took similar discontent at what my world looks like today, and wonder if Montaigne would agree: the more I have, the more isolated and cramped I feel. Often I find myself grieving too–we can’t go back. Primitivity is not something to be romanticized, but neither is constant progress, constant consumption. All of this to say (and I recognize my privilege in doing so), I enjoyed living with lack—I am of the opinion Montaigne may have too: in writing On the Cannibals he praises the simplicity of their lifestyle, seeming to crave it, despite the way society tends to view that sort of primitivity (and for me, the way my extended family tried to convince me out of owning so little.)

I find filling my empty space with experience or learning or even nothing at all to be intensely rewarding. It is easier to feel–and further, recognize–my own emotions when I am not suffocating in the things that could not replace them. Likewise, I cannot walk around my mind without some new knowledge of myself–some gain–and as such, writing often turns into the admittance of some self-discovery that I did not know I had made. I wonder often how much Montaigne knew of his grief as he wrote On the Cannibals (and his other works! Grief and growth are prevalent in Montaigne’s complete collection.) I wonder if initially the piece was only meant to act as a portrait. I often do the same while writing, then find myself embarrassed of it. I feel that my own emotion has little place in my work, and yet I cannot work without it. Thus, it is comforting to see Montaigne’s work withstand the test of time. While I am not him, both in character and skill, I imagine we are alike: these pieces are one of the few things I’ll carry through my entire life, and perhaps the only thing I will leave behind.

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Slightly Less Necessary Postscript Than Usual ™ 

Hi! This was supposed to be February’s piece, so I guess you’re getting double content in March (yay?) In all honesty, I literally just forgot to post it. 

That being said, I am a little…nervous to share this one, I guess? I say that every time but this is vastly different from what I normally post. Maybe that’s risky after the month I’ve had–I don’t know how exactly I doubled my subscribers (minimal engagement, dropped Crying in Yoga and dipped) but somehow I did and this is undoubtedly not what you signed up for. It’s more academic but it’s what I needed to write, and keeps true to the premise of this publication in that way exactly. I post what I write, the work I am proud of, and I feel proud of this. (Though it is abridged—let me know if you’re interested in a 40-page manifesto about Montaigne and grief over progress where I bring in several more of his essays.) Anyway, I hope you all enjoy and if you’ve read Montaigne or just found this interesting or whatever, it’s literally my favorite conversation topic so feel free to comment/dm and I would love to chat! (Literally messages and/or comments on my posts make my day more than any other engagement, like oh! Yes! You want to talk to me!)

For a logistical note: After gaining so many of you (technically not a lot but A LOT to me) I’ve been thinking about adding a paid subscription function if that’s something anyone would be interested in? My thought is that I would continue to put out one longer/not flash essay a month publicly (so nothing changes for free subscribers), but for a few dollars a month I’d put out my shorter flash/more journal-y pieces, my poetry, and maybe (???) add podcast form to my main posts. I don’t know–I don’t love the idea of financially commodifying my work from just an art standpoint, especially if that means “rewarding” people who can afford it, but it does take a lot of work to write and while I’ll do that no matter what, I am also just poor and I write enough to do this and there’s a rumor my landlord is raising rent. So let me know what you think of that in comments or chat or however. If it happens, it won’t happen until April or May (after annual essays–dubbed thesis in here so I don’t have to take a paragraph to explain–are complete.)

Anyway, I’ve rambled. I hope the first notes of Spring are treating you kindly.

XX- Ri