What Is a Personal Essay? “Que sais-je?”
What do I know?
What’s in my head?
Do I know anything at all?
We’ve all been there.
Staring at the blank page.
With a busy brain and no clear answer.
“Que sais-je?” means “What do I know?”
It was the motto of Michel de Montaigne.
The guy who basically invented the personal essay.
Before him, writing was sermons.
Letters.
Treatises.
Arguments.
Montaigne changed the rules.
He wrote about his fears.
His dreams.
His digestion.
Even his cat.
He didn’t try to prove anything.
He just tried to understand himself.
And by doing that—he touched the universal.
His essays wandered.
They asked more than they answered.
They contradicted themselves.
Just like we do.
And that’s the point.
A personal essay isn’t a clean argument.
It’s not a five-paragraph structure.
It’s not a thesis followed by bulletproof evidence.
It’s a search.
A reflection.
A question without an answer.
And that’s exactly what your college essay should be.
Until now, most of your writing has followed a formula.
State your claim.
Back it up.
That’s school writing.
But this…
This is different.
This is you on the page.
Thinking.
Wandering.
Wondering.
Not “I am a leader.”
Not “I love football.”
But:
Why do I always step up?
What draws me to the game?
Where does that part of me come from?
The thesis of a personal essay?
“This is who I am.”
Or maybe:
“Why I’m like this.”
It’s not clean.
It’s not obvious.
And that’s the beauty of it.
Walt Whitman said it best:
“Do I contradict myself?
Very well then, I contradict myself.
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)”
You do too.
So let your essay reflect that.
Not the polished version.
But the real one.
The honest one.
A great essay doesn’t tie everything up.
It opens things out.
It starts with a question.
And goes from there.
Photo: Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons