Finding his mind so filled with chimeras and fantastic monsters, one after another, without order or purpose, he [Montaigne] decided to write them down, not directly to overcome them, but to inspect their strangeness at his leisure. So he picked up his pen; the first of the Essays was born.

p. 31 - How to Live, or, A Life of Montaigne in one Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer (2010)