The hidden message in Michel de Montaigne’s literary legacy

Learning to fish is more valuable than getting a free meal, because the former can feed us for a lifetime. Methods are far more valuable than objects, because objects are finite. Methods are not limited in time. We can simply employ them to arrive at our goals once and again. The essays by Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) include an important hidden message: Keep your eyes open and stay alert. Don’t accept things without questioning, especially if they look too good to be true. Look beyond the obvious, especially when people tell you that there are no alternatives. Montaigne’s hidden message is about self-reliance, alertness and method. His essays illustrate his thought patterns and help readers acquire the habit of looking at the whole picture. I find it particularly impressive when Montaigne applied his method to seemingly innocuous subjects. Take for instance Montaigne’s essay “On Names” where he starts with the anodyne remark that some heirs fail to honour their family name. Their ancestors had become famous thanks to their heroic or courageous actions, but the heirs do not care. Would it not make more sense, asked Montaigne, to name individuals after their own deeds. Montaigne points to a Central African tribe called Yoruba, where children are named after something that they have done themselves or after the circumstances surrounding their birth. Here is the link to the original article: https://johnvespasian.com/the-hidden-message-in-michel-de-montaignes-literary-legacy/