TOW 20- IRB

            I was recently assigned a paper in my AP English course, which instructed me to describe the relationship between certainty and doubt. With this in mind, I began reading my IRB “How to Live,” a biography of French Philosopher Montaigne and the questions he considered throughout his life, all of which seemed to combine to form one all-encompassing question: How to live? As humans, the only thing we can be absolutely sure of is that we will live until we die. In this book, Sarah Bakewell attempts to answer, through Montaigne’s life and his essays, how we behave and think in the small period of time we have before we reach our impending death. There are no “rules” to living, and because of this, we all must decide how we should live.

            There are a series of questions that, when compiled, form the sub-categories of the uber-question: How to live? Death, attention, birth, literature, love, loss, trickery, questioning, privacy; all themes that appear in Bakewell’s “How to Live.” The beauty of this book is that each reader brings something different to the table: different experiences, perspectives, and opinions; therefore, each individual will come to their own conclusion. The contradictory nature that is inevitable in the answering of these questions leads me to the conclusion that life is truly whatever we want it to be, however we want to live it, whatever we choose to do with it. This is seen most prominently in Bakewell’s description of Montaigne’s struggle with his mortality. When contemplating how he would die, Montaigne hypothesized that if he knew all the possibilities of how he would die, he would feel more at-ease because he would be prepared. His brainstorming actually had the opposite effect; it made him paranoid and constantly anxious. Yet after an essay of struggling with this mindset, he finally concludes that death is simply a few uncomfortable moments at the end of life and is therefore, in the grand scheme of things, not worth spending time thinking about. This is a prime example of how a simple shift in perspective can immensely change how one lives their life. Once we realize this, we will be freed from the question of How to live? and we will simply live!