{"id":952,"date":"2021-08-13T17:17:08","date_gmt":"2021-08-14T00:17:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/marcusvorwaller.com\/blog\/?p=952"},"modified":"2021-08-13T17:17:08","modified_gmt":"2021-08-14T00:17:08","slug":"quoting-montaigne","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marcusvorwaller.com\/blog\/2021\/08\/13\/quoting-montaigne\/","title":{"rendered":"Quoting Montaigne"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>I am very ignorant about what I am. I marvel at the assurance and confidence people have of themselves\u2014while there is hardly anything I know for sure and that I could guarantee being able to do. I do not possess a checklist of my abilities; I learn about them only after they have done their job.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>No matter how many times I go over my own writings, rather than please me they disappoint and irritate me. I always have an idea in my mind, a fuzzy image, of a far better expression than the one I used, but, like in a dream, I can neither grasp nor develop it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>I know how neither please, delight, nor titillate the best tale in the world dries up in my hands and drones on. I know only how to talk seriously. I am quite devoid of that facility, which I see in several of my acquaintances, to chat away with every newcomer, keep an audience on the edge of its seats, or engage a prince on all outs of topics without boring him.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>From <em>Essays<\/em>, as quoted in <em>The Art of Solitude<\/em> by Stephen Batchelor<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Montaigne is a great example of how someone who isn\u2019t a natural storyteller, isn\u2019t a born self-promoter, or a raging extrovert can, through careful introspection and honest self-appraisal, resonate with so many people for so long.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I find that in most of my writing I studiously avoid including \u201cme\u201d and instead write about \u201cstuff\u201d I\u2019m interested in. Maybe revisiting Montaigne will change that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I am very ignorant about what I am. I marvel at the assurance and confidence people have of themselves\u2014while there is hardly anything I know for sure and that I could guarantee being able to do. I do not possess a checklist of my abilities; I learn about them only after they have done their [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[60,114],"class_list":["post-952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-etc","tag-philosophy","tag-writing"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/ppj2P-fm","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcusvorwaller.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/952","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcusvorwaller.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcusvorwaller.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcusvorwaller.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcusvorwaller.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=952"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/marcusvorwaller.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/952\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":953,"href":"https:\/\/marcusvorwaller.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/952\/revisions\/953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcusvorwaller.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcusvorwaller.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcusvorwaller.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}