Kiss Your Child Like It’s the Last Time
Epictetus wrote: when you kiss your child, remind yourself they are mortal. A BBC professor called it stupid. She missed the point. Jimmy’s analysis…
Fear
Marcus Aurelius Figured Out What Einstein Proved
In Meditation V.13, Marcus Aurelius wrote that matter cannot perish into non-existence. Einstein proved it eighteen centuries later. Jimmy's analysis of atoms, change, death,…
The Monk in the Margins
Odin. Thor. Freyr. Freyja. Loki. A rich, complex mythology full of competing powers, supernatural drama, and very specific ideas about how a warrior should…
Obsession Kills: What Hauchecorne Could Not Let Go
What is the truth in this story? We know it because the narrator told us: Hauchecorne picked up a piece of string. The wallet…
The Ghost Is Not a Plot Device — He’s the Root Cause of Every Death in Hamlet
When something goes wrong — in a factory, in a business, in a life — the first instinct is to identify what happened. The…
Bullying, Honor, and Fortune: What A Duel Really Reveals About Character
A Duel: A Reading with Jimmy Series In this three-part blog series, Jimmy examines A Duel not as a patriotic story or a simple…
The Rain, The Death, and the Man Who Walks Back to the Hotel Alone
In this blog, we confront the novel’s most unsettling truth: retreating from the world does not protect us from it. Henry tries to build…
The Most Dangerous Game Is Not About Hunting — It’s About Learning Fear
At the beginning of The Most Dangerous Game, Sanger Rainsford is not cruel. He is not evil. He is something far more common—and far…
Who Benefits from Fear That Never Resolves in The Hand
By the time The Hand ends, readers often feel a familiar mixture of satisfaction and unease. The story has done its work. The atmosphere…
Illusion Explains Fear — Not Truth in The Hand
One of the most common ways readers approach Guy de Maupassant’s The Hand is to ask a single question: Was the hand alive? Was…
