Essaying your own judgment

Montaigne made the essay, literally a "trial", an "attempt", into a philosophical practice: a way of testing his own judgment on the page rather than reaching for borrowed conclusions. Take a question that genuinely touches you and write your way through it, watching yourself think, allowing yourself to change your mind as you go. Today it is a remedy against opinions we hold only because they were handed to us: it turns self-examination into a concrete, repeatable habit.