Montaigne
What do I know?
Put your own weaknesses on the table first
Essays II.12; the medal he had struck in 1576
He wrote down his cowardice, his bad memory, his dithering. Not as confession. As a position that cannot be attacked.
What actually happened?
In 1576 he had a medal struck for himself carrying three words: What do I know? The Essays are that question worked out at length. He writes that his memory is poor, that he dislikes pain, that he hesitates and contradicts himself from one page to the next, and he softens none of it. I do not portray being, he says, I portray passing. Four hundred years on it is still read, partly because the author's faults are placed at the front, where nobody else can pick them up and use them.
A card you play yourself cannot be played against you
What people afraid of exposure actually fear is somebody else naming the weakness first. He inverts it and names it himself, more fully than anyone else could be bothered to. Once a thing is face up on the table it has stopped being in anybody's hand.
Saying this part is not my area, up front, costs far less than being caught out on it later.
What do I know is a stance, not a modesty formula
He is not performing ignorance. He has made I might be wrong his permanent standing position. From there, being corrected requires no defence, because no claim to being right was ever made. Defending is the expensive part, and he simply removed the bill.
Open with I may have this wrong, and the correction costs you nothing to absorb.
Inconsistency is not a flaw, it is a person
He says he portrays passing, not being. Most people panic when someone says that is not what you told me last time. He does not, because he announced from the start that he changes. Admit that you move and nobody can pin you to a fixed position.
Told you never used to think this, yes, I changed is shorter than any explanation you could give.
How do I use it today?
Where you are: you are in a seat that feels hollow, and you expect to be found out.
Ask first: of the three faults you most fear being exposed, has one ever come out of your own mouth? Do you have a ready this is not my area?
Where it goes wrong: reading it as confess everything and drop all guard — every fault he set down was thought about first; and what do I know is not a licence to judge nothing, he judges constantly, just never as final truth.
Lines to keep
I do not portray being. I portray passing.
A card you turn over yourself cannot be played against you.
Same situation, other people are asking
I'm in this seat and I feel hollow in it.The fight I'm afraid of is inside me.What I actually want is for someone to say "you were right."I need to hold my nerve and there's nothing underneath it.They'll find out I can't do this · all 7 questions →If this one named what you are going through,
send it to someone who needs it, or keep it somewhere you will find it again.