"How to Live": Grandfather of the writing we love to hate - Laura Miller - Salon.com: The word Bakewell uses most often to describe her subject's outlook is "nonchalance." Inspired by classical philosophers of the Epicurean, Stoic and Skeptical schools, Montaigne adopted a Zen-like attitude in which everything is subject to doubt and nothing should be taken too seriously. As Bakewell puts it, "He went with the flow."