by Timothy Cataldo
How to live?
Chilton and Montaigne are not that far apart regarding the answer.
In my recent skinned-knuckle experience, the pen is mightier than the “s” word, as the saying goes.
After changing the front wheel bearings this morning, and swearing up a “shit” storm, I’m actually in a sunshiny philosophical mood. It has to be. I’m too much of a coward to commit suicide, which I wanted to do about one million times today.
Seriously, I’m going to tell you, without commentary, how our dear Micheau has answered this provocative question:
1. Don’t worry about death
2. Pay attention
3. Be born
4. Read a lot, forget most of what you read
5. Survive love and loss
6. Use little tricks
7. Question everything
8. Keep a private room behind the shop
9. Be convivial: live with others
10. Wake from the sleep of habit
11. Live temperately
12. Guard your humanity
13. Do something no one has done before
14. See the world
15. Do a good job, but not too good a job
16. Philosophize only by accident
17. Reflect on everything; regret nothing
18. Give up control
19. Be ordinary and imperfect
20. Let life be its own answer
After hundreds of pages of complicated, frustrating dismantling procedures and knuckle-busting wisdom earned, here’s Chilton’s classic life advice summed up in the last sentence of the manual:
Assembly is the reverse of disassembly.
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