A little touch of Montaigne in the night

Recently, I signed the contract and paid the deposit for an off-the-plan apartment. Some twelve months are still to pass before completion, but I am hopeful of imparting aspects of my personality onto the finished product. Specifically, at this point in time I am contemplating:

• eschewing a television because modern tv programs are insufficiently stimulating
• fostering learnedness with a selection of good books, professional and otherwise, though not so many as to overwhelm
• embracing transcendental meditation with a peaceful routine

One of my aspirations is for my future partner, upon entering my apartment for the first time, to find it clean, tidy, modern, spacious, airy, well-suited to living, laughing and contentedness, a place that she would be pleased with. I will try and cultivate these attributes now, as well as learn all the skills that I'll need - cooking and cleaning being chief among them, with ironing following fast behind!

My initial plan was to adopt Montaigne's practice of adorning his living space with favourite or meaningful quotes from authors. However, I think the body corporate would have conniptions if I had them welded in like Montaigne!

Here is a little touch of Montaigne in the night -

First, on the quality of loving-friendship:

"Moreover, what we normally call friends and friendships are no more than acquaintances and familiar relationships bound by some chance or suitability, by means of which our souls support each other. In the friendship which I am talking about, souls are mingled and confounded in so universal a blending that they efface the seam which joins them together so that it cannot be found. If you press me to say why I loved him, I feel that it cannot be expressed except by replying, 'Because it was him; because it was me.'"

Second, on the true task in life:

"If you have been able to examine and manage your own life you have achieved the greatest task of all. Nature, to display and show her powers, needs no great destiny: she reveals herself equally at any level of life, both behind curtains or without them. Our duty is to bring order to our morals not to the materials for a book: not to win provinces in battle but order and tranquillity for the conduct of our life. Our most great and glorious achievement is to live life fittingly. Everything else - reigning, building, laying up treasure - are at most tiny props and small accessories. "