It’s mid-December and I know what you’re thinking: Time for another end-of-year recap.
So here’s one you didn’t know you needed: HyperEssays 2023 Wrapped!
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HyperEssays
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HyperEssays is a project to create a modern and accessible online edition of the Essays of Michel de Montaigne
A productive Friday afternoon at the office…
But the last paragraph of I.20—a frightening death scene—illustrates Montaigne’s dilemma and the evolution of his Essays. He believes that death has something to teach us about life. But to write about it, he has to write about the living.
And so, while Montaigne opens with #Cicero’s (and #Plato’s) idea of philosophy as preparation for death—an abstract argument from antiquity—he closes with the preparations the living, his contemporaries, have to make to be with the dying.
Like many of his other early chapters, I.20 is still somewhat impersonal. Montaigne often paraphrases classical authors. But he can be funny and entertaining too: ”I want death to find me planting my cabbages!”
If Michel de Montaigne could answer Barbie’s question 🤪, he would tell her that, yes, he does think about dying. Often. And that it’s not such a bad thing.
Existential Comics’ latest strip: “Extreme Skepticism” featuring (y)our pal, Michel de Montaigne.