Montaigne — The Original FIRE Blogger

Montaigne (1533–1592) was a French Renaissance philosopher, a lawyer and a reluctant politician. Surprisingly, he was also likely the first FIRE (financial independence retire early) blogger — some six centuries ago. In this essay, I will highlight some bits about his approach to life, his blogging and early retirement.

A fascinating character, Montaigne was arguably the founding father of blog-style of writing and as prolific as any blogger today. In fact, he became famous for his collection of “Essays” — a new style of writing at the time — covering a gazillion of random topics which he spent half of his lifetime expanding and refining. His topics ranged from the meaning of life, love and pain of kidney stones to the colour of poop, and, yes, even managing money in early retirement. Montaigne wrote with great openness and often in a stream of consciousness full of anecdotes, quotes and tangents. Despite using the old-style language which is too verbose by today’s standards, his prose is very conversational.

His Essays were very popular because he was unpretentious, incredibly open for his time, curious and kind. He liked to observe and put thoughts on paper, but he never claimed to hold the truth. He was not afraid to show self-doubt (“What do I know?”) and vulnerability, which was particularly unconventional in books back then. This made him a bit of a maverick, but super authentic and relatable despite his privileged background.

“My only aim here is to reveal myself, and I may be different tomorrow if I learn something new that changes me. I have no authority to be believed, nor do I want it, feeling myself too ill-instructed to instruct others. “

Montaigne’s Philosophy

His philosophy focused on practical aspects of living well and represented a mixture of the three classic Greek philosophies of Stoicism, Epicureanism and Scepticism. He would not even call it a philosophy — he did not care for grandiose labels or strict prescriptions. He observed what interested him and noted what worked for him. His way of life would appeal to many FIRE seekers.

Montaigne is a Stoic in his disdain of pursuits of vanity, fame and praise, but he is not dark and not detached like some Stoics. As an Epicurean, he values friendship, music and loves conversation. He loves pleasure, particularly intellectual, but seeks moderation in everything — opinions, judgements, desires. He is sceptical and open-minded, but grounded in practicality and personal experience. He seeks calm and enjoys contemplation, but loves variety. He prefers free-flow, creativity, diversions and freedom to rigour, discipline and structure. He is very sensitive to justice, but does not prescribe many virtues. He celebrates being ordinary and imperfect. And all of this makes him non-ordinary. His approach of taking what works from different philosophies and not being dogmatic is really appealing.

Montaigne’s journey offers many lessons on how to live well, and I hope to cover this broader topic in a separate post.

Montaigne & Early Retirement

So, how was Montaigne a FIRE blogger? He was on FIRE and wrote about it. He retired at 38 from a public career to pursue a life of freedom, tranquility, calm, contemplation and leisure. From then on, he spent most of the time observing, travelling and writing many editions of his Essays. After 13 years, he was called back to public office for a few years as a mayor of Bordeaux and as peace mediator for France at the highest levels. He died at 59 from an infection disease. So, if we could ask him posthumously, I am sure he would say he retired not a day too soon.

Montaigne came from a wealthy family of landowners — he was Lord Montaigne after all. One of my favourite musing of his is a suggestion to dedicate one of the towers in your chateau to yourself as your man cave, which is what he did to write his Essays. Great idea, man! I will tell my chateau manager tomorrow.

So, what could a wealthy landowner teach us about FIRE? To buy land? Well, no, his lessons are never that prescriptive. We can learn how to live well from his example and how he approached money to reduce the hinderance.

As many FIRE devotees know, it is not about how much you make/own, but how you live (spend, do). Indeed, being a rich landowner did not guarantee you a life of comfort, peace and prosperity. There were lots of fellow landlord Jones to compare yourself to and bankrupt yourself in the process. The estate had to be run well to feed the peasants and the staff — and Montaigne really did not like managing. As a land owner, you had to engage in politics to lobby your interests, to defend your estate, to ensure a working legal system in your region. He also lived during a time of great turmoil with ferocious religious wars between Catholics and Protestants that pitted neighbour on neighbour. He lost 5 out of 6 children while young, as was common at the time. He had to ride horses for transport, for God’s sake, which nearly killed him.

So, no doubt, an average software engineer today has a much easier path to reach a peaceful existence in early retirement than a landlord in France at that time. We live in some good times!

Three Stages with Personal Finances

He talked about three stages of his relationship with money.

In stage one, he was poor and studied a lot. His parents made sure not to spoil him. According to a popular wealthy tradition at the time, he spent the first 3 years being brought up by a peasant family in their home in order to acquaint him with life in a simple family. His education after that was another extreme — private tutoring. So, he did not endure peasant life for long. His private teacher would play a different instrument every night to put him to sleep to broaden his exposure and would only talk Latin to him. His father forced him to make Latin his primary language which the parents hardly spoke. Montaigne’s education was very progressive on many accounts and he shares a lot of great thoughts on it worth exploring. A lot of it was about following interests, digging deep, experiencing and no rote memorization. He had great education which fostered his curiosity, but was not spoiled for riches. He later studied at school and had to earn his way to a legal career through study and to work quite a bit on that path.

In the second stage of this life, he was nominally rich after inheriting the estate, but it came with a lot of burdens and responsibilities. At this point, he was afraid of all possible contingencies and overwhelmed by responsibilities. He had no idea how much he could spend and was irrationally terrified of using any money.

“Back then I would pawn my clothes and sell a horse far less unwillingly and with less regret than I would have drawn on that beloved purse that I was keeping in reserve.

But the danger lay in its not being easy to put definite limits on such desires (limits are hard to find for things we think to be good) and so to know when to stop saving.

You go on making your pile bigger, increasing it from one sum to another until, like a peasant, you sordidly deprive yourself of the enjoyment of your own goods, standing guard over them and never actually using them.”

In other words, he had no financial plan and experienced anxiety about the future. Something a lot of people could relate to at any income level.

“A rich man who is worried, hard up and over-busy seems to me more wretched than one who is simply poor. “

In his third stage, which he found most enjoyable, he reconciled to just live within his means. Namely, he resolved to only spend as much as the operating income of the property allowed on an average year. He was content to satisfy basic needs and not strive to procure more wealth. He delegated most of the management work that he despised as much as he could.

“Riches are more a matter of careful living than of income”

“I live from day to day, and content myself with having enough to meet my present and ordinary needs: extraordinary ones could not be met by all the provision in the world.”

“Happy the man who has ordered his needs so appropriately that his wealth can satisfy them without his care and trouble, and without the spending and the gathering of his wealth interrupting his other pursuits that are better suited to him, quieter, and more congenial. “

“A happy man is not one who is believed by others to be so but one who himself believes he is so. And by that fact the belief acquires reality and truth.“

Typical Extraordinary

Despite Montaigne’s unique privileged background, the above three phases of relationship with money are a familiar journey for many FIRE devotees today.

Most start with little and have to grind for some time. Some Stoic principles help at this stage and so does youthful exuberance, hubris and energy. The grind eventually wears you, but initial rewards are exciting. At first, the savings come slow as we need to cover basic needs of independent living. Many people initially spend more and more in early stages beyond the point of diminishing returns to happiness.

Then, we reach a level where comfort is possible but does not feel secure. This is because initially we have no long-term plan and no idea of how much we should/could spend/save. For example, a lot of people choose to drive new expensive cars that add very little to their happiness. We seem to “need” a lot more things and are still very bad at predicting what makes and keeps us happy. But eventually, we wise up and start to save more. Some get there sooner, some later.

Then, in the second phase, we seek more freedom and decide to shape life more in that direction. We get smarter financially, we do some math, projections, start budgeting, start tracking expenses, gain confidence and eventually comfort to steer our own course — away from the crowds and the rat race. We learn to moderate spending and live within the means. We learn that more possessions don’t make us happier and actively resisit consumerism. Those who don’t learn it, never reach peace.

We start to notice things/relationships that cause us pain and steer away from them. We choose to engage in hobbies or work that gives us more pleasure and minimum or no pain. We moderate desires better because we “have been there” and know better.

Finally, in the third stage, we gain more courage to question conventions, for example, constant busyness which is done to feed unlimited desires, vanity, fame, acceptance and cover up the void of deeper meaning and joy. We are not excited by the cult of productivity anymore. We let ourselves have free time, explore, garden, stretch and take a nap. We calm the mind chatter. We don’t care what others think as much. We find balance, we practice it more and then we are on FIRE like Montaigne. It is a journey and you can hardly jump steps on it no matter how smart you are — just steer it.

Different parts of the journey also have better philosophies to support us along the way. Just like Montaigne, we can draw on all of them. Stoicism is good during the hardest times for the grind or when we are in a rut. It is a not surprise that this philosophy gained ground with Roman Emperors constantly engaged in wars and politics. Epicurean philosophy is more suited for times of prosperity — when you think deeper about true pleasures of life and consciously reduce/avoid pain. It is a better end-goal in my opinion, but also a good elixir for middle-life crisis silliness. Sceptic philosophy is there to keep us away from dogmas. No absolute truth. Just a journey — like Montaigne’s.

Lessons for FIRE Bloggers

Montaigne not only retired early and tried to live good life, but also wrote a biography of his thoughts — much like many of today’s FIRE bloggers do only much broader in scope. I like this genre of blogging because it combines personal stories with practical ideas and often comes from people who are actively contemplating how to live better and practice it. Montaigne was radically open about his thoughts and very broad in his topics. Sharing your own experience is powerful because it is authentic. Not being prescriptive is also very appealing because there is no one right way to live well.

Montaigne also had the luxury to not try to make money from his essays. This is liberating. In fact, he took 8 years to publish the first collection. Well, it took a lot of effort to publish and distribute books in the old days. He then enhanced and expanded them till his death. He just enjoyed the process. One wonders what kind of Tweeter+Medium kingpin he would have been today. Something tells me that he would have enjoyed broad sharing, but not chasing the likes every day.

Being on FIRE is a lot more than just not having to work 9–5. It a way to live well. Montaigne is a great example of someone spending his “retirement” well in intellectual leisure. It is what he did in “retirement” that made him happy and left a lasting legacy. He had to curtail his career ambition to take control of his life. He had to moderate his desires to reach a higher level of freedom and leave more space for pleasure. He contemplated what made him happy and pursued it — such as good friendships and writing. By all accounts, he lived a rich and satisfying life.

Let us all follow in his steps in our own ways and enjoy richer life while needing less. For FIRE bloggers out there, keep carrying the Montaigne flag!

Epilogue

“Fortune does us neither good nor harm: it only offers us the matter and the seeds for good or harm, and our soul, more powerful than fortune is, moulds the matter or sows the seeds as it pleases. It alone causes and controls our happy or unhappy state. It alone causes and controls our happy or unhappy state.

Whatever comes to us from outside takes its savour and its colour from our inner constitution, just as our garments warm us not with their heat but with ours, which they are fitted to preserve and sustain. Shelter a cold body under them and they will help it preserve its coldness; that is how snow and ice are preserved. “

Resources

Montaigne Biography on wikipedia

This essay was more about Montaigne’s life journey than his specific writings. If this interests you, I highly recommend the book by Sarah Bakewell “How to Live: A life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer”.

Montaigne’ “Essays” are not an easy read because of old-style language which is pretty verbose, and Montaigne’s own style which is not very structured. The sections are not connected, so you can skip to any one you like. There are many translations and you should find one to your likening. Lots of free texts are available.

To me, Montaigne is closets to an Epicurean, and a good book from modern writer on this philosophy is “How to be an Epicurean” by Catherine Wilson. It an easy read with some adaptation of the Epicurean philosophy to the questions of modern times.

Best FIRE blogger — Mr Money Mustache (MMM). I never met him, but feel like he is a kindred spirit with his love of biking, building, exercise and anti-consumerism. His writing and life story influenced many people to live better lives — just like Montaigne’s.