Whenever a few individuals do break free, adds La Boétie, it is often because their eyes have been opened by the study of history. Learning of similar past tyrannies, they recognize the pattern in their own society. Instead of accepting what they are born into, they acquire the art of slipping out of it and seeing everything from a different angle—a trick Montaigne, in the Essays, would make his characteristic mode of thinking and writing. Alas, there are usually too few of these free spirits to do any good. They do not work together, but live “alone in their imaginings.”
~from Sarah Bakewell's "How to live life"/Montaigne
More from Sarah/Montaigne:
The populace willingly gives itself up, and this only encourages the tyrant to take away everything they have—even their lives, if he sends them to war to fight for him. Something in human beings drives them to a “deep forgetfulness of freedom.” Everyone, from top to bottom of the system, is mesmerized by their voluntary servitude and by the power of habit, since often they have known nothing else. Yet all they need to do is to wake up and withdraw their cooperation.
Uprooted and transplanted which leads to my view of the world being, sometimes, a bit different than most. Not always right, not always wrong. I just think too much and had to find a way to get it all out of my head.
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