Montaigne on Age: What Growing Older Truly Teaches Us
An hourglass sits on a table. Sand flows silently from the upper chamber to the lower, grain by grain, impossible to grasp or hold back. It is an everyday image, almost forgotten in our age of digital clocks. Yet that simple object contains a truth that Michel de Montaigne articulated with uncommon clarity in his brief but penetrating essay ‘On Age’: we are not the masters of time — time is the quiet sculptor of our lives. The Heart of the Essay In this fifty-seventh essay from the first book of his celebrated collection, Michel de Montaigne takes up a theme that touches every human being sooner or later: growing old. The essay is remarkably short compared to many of his other reflections, but that very brevity gives it a particular force. Montaigne argues that our assumptions about age, lifespan, and the ‘right’ time to die are often founded on misconceptions. We imagine that a long life is the norm, while reality teaches us something quite different. In his era, reaching the age of fifty was already exceptional. Montaigne points out that anyone who regards death as something strange or untimely is simply deceiving themselves. Impermanence as a Starting Point […]