Possible answer number 3 in Sarah Blackwell’s book about Montaigne, “How to Live”, is entitled “be born”.
At first, I thought this was a joke, like the one that goes “Q. What’s the first thing you have to do before getting off a train? A. Get on it”
However it turns out to be a very thoughtful piece on the circumstances of our births. By circumstances I mean the parents we are born to, as well as the social and cultural situation into which we are born.
How much of your mum or dad do you recognise in yourself? Whether it’s due to genetics or family socialisation, there will be aspects of your personality and behaviour which you may recognise in your ancestors (from parents, through grandparents and so on). That’s a common thread in the BBC’s excellent “Who do you think you are?” series. Time and again the person tracing their family tree discovers ancestors who had strikingly similar occupations or traits to their own.
Of course, it’s not all about having similar characteristics to our parents, or grandparents. Sometimes the next generation goes the opposite way….perhaps in reaction to their experience of how they were parented.
One of my grandfathers was an avid reader and read me stories frequently (including Walter Scott’s Tales of a Grandfather). Did he pass on that love of reading, storytelling and history, to me (traits not shared with his daughter, my mum)? It seems he did. I even learned he used to give talks with a “magic lantern”, something I used to recall as I’d head for a venue with my laptop and projector in hand.
It’s an important point. How we live is enormously influenced by the contexts of our existence. By our roots. That isn’t to say they are set in stone and I don’t accept it in a fatalistic way, but I reckon if I want to understand myself, or someone else, then I need to take into account the circumstances of early life, the “family history”, the social and cultural influences.
In that sense, how we live, is better understood by learning about our origins, and our early years.
This also makes me think of what I’ve learned about attachment theory and neural development…..how a healthy attachment style with the primary carer in the first few months of life can influence the development of the brain, including the number of interconnections formed between the neurones. Those early months and years can also set up inflammatory patterns if there is poverty, poor nutrition and a lack of safety at that time. (Something known as the “allostatic load”). So the patterns of chronic illness which can appear in adult life can often be traced back to those early years.
Heroes Not Zombies 
Starting to follow your posts on Montaigne with increasing interest and fascination, Bob. I didn’t know much about Montaigne, other than a quote which the late, great Bernard Levin used in a Times article many, many years ago – no matter how high the throne on which we sit, we’re still only sitting on our own backsides. Puts all our ideas of self importance into proper perspective.
Being born in order to determine the way we live – this doesn’t happen only once in our lives, at the beginning. There’s the potential of some kind of rebirth later on in life, resulting in a complete change of character and direction of life. Of course, I know that the expression “born again” has been horribly hijacked by a certain type of fundamentalist religiosity, but the concept is still valid. I remember hearing how George McLeod, founder of the Iona Community, was speaking passionately at a Church of Scotland General Assembly about the evils of nuclear weapons, and another church minister, who’d never previously bothered about that issue, was so profoundly affected that he dedicated himself from then on to work for the elimination of nuclear weapons and for peace and justice – for him, it was like a complete rebirth. I hope Montaigne would have understood!
And that was quite some story about the shellfish and your near-death experience!
Ah yes, of course. It’s not a fatalist idea but just a recognition that our origins and early years influence us.
I completely agree about change and transformation. Sometimes a new chapter is more like a brand new volume – second part of a trilogy or whatever!
I certainly feel that about my own life.