"I want to be alone..."

Is usually said as an impression of Greta Garbo. She claimed never to have said those actual words, instead she said that she wanted to be let alone. However, YouTube seems to show differently.

The next book from the pile is Sarah Bakewell's 'How to live : A life of Montaigne in one questions and twenty attempts at an answer'.

This had been bought for me as we had been to Montaigne's chateau in the Dordogne some years ago. Montaigne was a 16th Century French Magistrate working in Bordeaux and also running his family estate 35 miles inland. However, in his late 30s and with the anticipated arrival of his first child he resigned his public office and withdrew to his estate in order to retire.

His chateau afforded him the space and income to allow his to withdraw like this, and he modified one of the towers in the corner of the chateau courtyard to allow him to be alone - even from his family. In order to maintain a sense of balance, he did the same with the other tower as space for his wife.

The suggestion is that he made this decision with the romantic notion that once withdrawn he would be able to rest and live a serene life, but he soon discovered 'the existential crisis Seneca had warned of', namely feelings of 'dissatisfaction, self-loathing, fear, indecisiveness, lethargy and melancholy', amongst others (p30).

His chateau, at least when we visited in the summer of 2017, was a rural idyll - perfectly set in the warm climate of the French countryside, surrounded by vineyards and woodland. It seems incredible to think that someone could live here and not be totally peaceful and in harmony with self and creation.

Sadly, for most of us our human nature seems to work like it had for Montaigne, and now we find ourselves in an enforced isolation without the opportunity or resources, maybe, to have such a pleasant location in which to be alone, we have to find our purpose in a different direction.

Bakewell writes that Montaigne found the answer by reading his favourite classical writers.

'Plutarch's advice was the same as Seneca's: focus on what is present in front of you, and pay full attention to it' (p32).

This started the process that led to Montaigne writing his famous Essays. These were not philosophical treatises or even intellectual exercises, but the record of Montaigne's feelings about issues from the fear of death to the act of posting a letter. It is not clear whether Montaigne wrote in order to publish his thoughts, or whether he was writing for himself, family and friends.

His rooms in his tower are quite remarkable as he had clearly intended to make the space as conducive to thinking as possible.

The view of the chateau from a window in the tower (the chateau was rebuilt after a fire in the 19th Century)

A view towards the other tower.

The famous roof beams showing some of the classic texts Montaigne had painted on them so he could read them as he walked around the room.

So Montaigne's initial intention was to retreat into (an albeit relatively luxurious and splendid) self-isolation, but this turned into a realisation that life with ease but without purpose can lead to listless dissatisfaction. He was fortunate to be able to find his purpose whilst supported by his own means - he did not need to create his writings in order to have them published to make money.

In Genesis, the theological reflection of the Creation story, we are told that God instructed Adam

‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.’ (Genesis 1:28)

even before the realisation of the need for a companion (relationship)

‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.’ (Genesis 2:18)

I think these two accounts are intended to be parallel tellings, so I won't claim one has priority over the other. The point, I think, is that purpose (in fruitful labour) and companionship (in committed relationships) are significant for human beings - which is obvious because we are made in the image of a creative and relational God.

The need for people to seek out being alone and without the pressures of work is not, I would suggest, a contradiction of the above, rather it is because we have made a mis-shape out of work. For many it is no longer a blessing in itself (we think of the wage packet, or the sense of self-importance as we tell people what we are - or if that doesn't sound significant enough - what we do). There was also immense wisdom in the call to honour the Sabbath, and here I am only thinking about a proper day of resting and refocussing on being a 'human being' rather than an 'inhuman doing'. This is not the same as going back to the days of Sundays with shops closed and rubbish on the telly, rather the active making of space within our diaries and within ourselves.

So how are you going to be today? What are you going to bless by tending, nurturing or creating? And who are you going to be yourself with?