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…
Perception
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 Man on the Corner Said One Word
A homeless man in San Francisco said one word: Amnesty. Marcus Aurelius wrote about it eighteen hundred years earlier. Jimmy's analysis of cooperation, kinship,…
What the Most Powerful Man in the World Said to Himself Every Morning
Marcus Aurelius was the most powerful man in the world — and every morning he wrote himself a warning. Jimmy's analysis of Meditation II.1:…
The Language That Paints Without Brushes
This post is about language — specifically, the language of Burton Raffel's translation of Beowulf. Aristotle named diction as one of his six elements…
Nobody Reads Beowulf Anymore (And That’s the Problem)
Beowulf has survived over a thousand years — and most people have never really read it. Jimmy opens a five-part analysis with translations, the…
What Women Most Desire
Jimmy analyzes the Wife of Bath's Tale — the rapist knight, the old woman's bargain, and what sovereignty really means. Includes Aristotle's plot theory…
The Sex Strike That Stopped a War
Let's get one thing straight before we go any further: Lysistrata is a comedy. Not a tragedy. Not a cautionary tale. A comedy. And…
Hamlet’s Mother Didn’t Know — And That’s the Most Disturbing Thing in the Play
Everyone in Hamlet is watching someone else. Polonius watches Hamlet through Ophelia. Claudius watches Hamlet through Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Horatio watches the King at…
Know Your Enemy Is the Easy Half — Sun Tzu’s Harder Demand Is Knowing Yourself
This third essay argues that the most quoted line in The Art of War is only half the instruction. Sun Tzu puts self-knowledge first…
The Final Descent: When Madness Becomes the Only Reality in Diary of a Madman
In the end, Diary of a Madman leaves us with a troubling realization which we will explore in Blog #3. The narrator does not…
When Perception Becomes Reality: The Logic of Madness in Diary of a Madman
In this post, we will watch the narrator’s journey into madness. The explanations that once lived quietly inside his diary and mind begin to…
