Geeky Stoics

Did you see the news about The Chronicles of Narnia? After years of negotiation, director Greta Gerwig has closed a deal to have her Narnia movie hit theaters on November 26, 2026 before streaming on Netflix that Christmas. It’s pretty exciting! We love C.S. Lewis’ Narnia here on Geeky Stoics. The best available information out there points to Gerwig starting her Narnia series with the chronologic...

The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater. — Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring Throughout The Lord of the Rings , doom and tragedy are constantly on the doorstep of J.R.R. Tolkien’s heroes. Failure and defeat happen frequently. The Witch King o...

It’s a rare and beautiful thing to meet someone with whom you discover so much in common. Not just experiences, but sentiment and aspiration. That’s how I felt after taping a podcast with Evan, best known for his viral Twitter account, @MidddleearthMixr. Going into this conversation about Tolkien and the relevant philosophy of The Lord of the Rings , I didn’t realize I knew Evan from my profession...

The first thing you’ll see in my home when you enter is a framed portrait of Abraham Lincoln. Below the image of America’s 16th president, a man who arguably refounded the United States and became one of its most consequential figures, is a list of his numerous failures. The guy posted a lot of L’s. This list of Lincoln failures is pretty well known, so you might have seen this before. Here is the...

“It is not a golden bit that makes one horse superior to others.” -Seneca, Letters from A Stoic It’s taken longer than I intended to find a Dragon Ball Z topic for Geeky Stoics. This uniquely popular anime in the United States was my second love growing up, right next to Star Wars. My favorite character is Vegeta , the Prince of Saiyans. He is a total jerk, but it’s something of a novelty as the s...

A podcast addition to Geeky Stoics “Don’t seek for everything to happen as you wish it would, but rather wish that everything happens as it actually will—then your life will flow well” - Epictetus, Enchiridion, 8. Grey Worm looks at Missandei, with a profound seriousness on his face but a sort of sadness in his eyes. He has not just accepted what happened to him, but he has chosen something akin t...

A few weeks ago, Riley and I got together in Northern Virginia to spend some time working on Geeky Stoics’ future. For me, the highlight was taking a morning walk out in the Manassas Battlefield Park and sharing some ideas with each other about why we take fiction so seriously. The goal was a candid conversation. At the heart of this exchange is a common disagreement between fans of stories like S...

“ There’s no difference between responsibility and adventure ” is something said by Jordan Peterson in his most recent chat with Joe Rogan. I scribbled that one down as soon as I heard it. It resonated for a few reasons, chief among them that accepting responsibility in my own life around age 20 led me to the life I have now…with a beautiful wife of 13 years and an equally lovely daughter of 13. T...

Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings have two very similar moments. As a great threat makes itself known in each world, a band of potential heroes circle up to assess the danger and devise a plan. In Star Wars: Rogue One this is the “rebellions are built on hope speech” delivered by Jyn Erso who has discovered the plans for the Death Star and wants to lead the fractured Rebel Alliance in stealing t...

“Just because some people are nice to you, doesn’t mean you should spend time with them” -Epictetus in The Art of Living You probably have gotten an earful for most of your life about choosing your friends wisely. Mom or Dad might have told you this, maybe a coach and most certainly your Sunday school teacher. I don’t know about you, but I didn’t listen to this when I was 16. I wanted to be friend...

“When you’ve done well and another has benefited by it — why like a fool do you look for a third thing on top—credit for the good deed or a favor in return?” -Marcus Aurelius Love languages are funny. Some people really value conversation in their relationship, others value closeness. I remember early on in my marriage I thought it was uncomfortable to sit on the couch in silence with my wife, jus...

There are two truths I want you to hold at once. The first truth is that you have no time to waste being someone you’re not. I recently interviewed this young entrepreneur named Nicolas Kirkland, and he said something that stuck with me — “ Why do you gotta act like everybody else? Everybody else is taken. ” We’re either on the hamster wheel of trying to fit in or we’ve slipped into the sinkhole o...

This week we’ve been back through Game of Thrones in our house. I haven’t watched it again since 2011 when the series first premiered on HBO and took over popular culture for the next eight years. There’s so much to be said about the characters in this show. Starks. Lannisters. Targaryens. Dothrakis. Baratheons . I’d forgotten how powerful this contest for control of Kings Landing and Westeros is....

While I was chaperoning my daughter’s Scout Troop at summer camp in July, I took The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe with me to revisit the classic C.S. Lewis tale with adult eyes. It was fun. I fully appreciate now why I loved this story so much growing up. I also can appreciate with even more clarity why I loathed the character of Edmund so much. He’s the younger brother and family traitor who se...

Owen: " We don't need anything from you, Kenobi." Obi-Wan: "It's just a toy." Owen: "It's a lot more than that. " ―Owen Lars to Obi-Wan Kenobi I’ve been thinking a lot today about why I do this. Here’s what I came up with. Geeky Stoics is about drawing out the transcendent from the entertaining. It’s about reaching beyond “escapism” and expanding your potential in the real world through the enjoym...

Why do our warmest memories sort of hurt? You know the feeling . An old home video from childhood where you’re opening Christmas presents in the company of siblings and cousins, or the memory box from high school full of photos and scribblings featuring your long-lost best friends. We miss these times. Though they were challenging at the time (being a teenager is hard) you can’t help but look back...

A journey through perspective taking with Star Wars and C.S. Lewis. The glasses we wear in life change everything. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.geekystoics.com/subscribe

“What view is one likely to take of the state of a person’s mind when his speech is wild and incoherent and knows no restraint?” The Roman known as Seneca asked this question sometime around the year 50 AD in a collection of letters now published as Letters From A Stoic . It’s possible I like this book more than Stoicism’s seminal text, Meditations . It’s very practical. Seneca was a lawyer, senat...

Clive Staples Lewis (C.S. Lewis), known to friends and family as “Jacksie” (or Jack), was a stridently opinionated young man from the earliest age. He was a bookworm, an avid enjoyer of mythology and you could even say he was a bit too pleased with himself for it. During an unpleasant period of Lewis’ life (age 15) studying at Malvern College, a boys’ prep school, Lewis began to form an aspect of...

Yesterday I revisited a Robin Williams classic, the Dead Poets Society . This movie likely inspired a generation of English teachers, based on how many times this movie was shown to me in school by a teacher with a twinkle in their eye. Everyone fancies themselves the Williams character, Mr. Keating, who teaches his students about language, romanticism, and “carpe diem”.  It’s a great movie and ag...

Once there was a Gnat who flew over the meadow with much buzzing for so small a creature and he settled on the tip of one of the horns of a Bull. After he had rested a short time, the Gnat made ready to fly away. But before he left he begged the Bull's pardon for having used his horn for a resting place. " You must be very glad to have me go now, " said the Gnat " It's all the same to me ," replie...

Nothing is worse than losing your sense of who you are . That’s what Riley wrote about for Geeky Stoics just a few days ago. C.S. Lewis worried about this too. He had this sense that Satan himself would love nothing more than to alienate the individual from the person in the mirror. That horrible, empty feeling when you look at yourself and don’t like what you see. The hatred of your own unique vo...

The problems on Naboo were deeper than a droid army invasion in Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace . Their planet was divided. One culture and species above the water, another pushed below. The Gungans are sort of a George Lucas stand-in for an indigenous people, while the human beings of Naboo are like colonial settlers. “The Naboo” came from off-world and ran the Gungans off their land. Th...

Life is comfortable in the ivory tower . You can look down on the rest of the world from the observatory window, seated next to your collection of books chock full of ancient wisdom and quips. The Jedi Order was trapped in this state during the years leading up to the Star Wars prequel trilogy ( Episodes I, II, III ). The Jedi Council literally sat around at the top of an ivory-looking tower on Co...

May the Fourth be with you! What better way to celebrate than to watch a very special, video edition of the Geeky Stoics podcast. In this episode, Stephen Kent and Riley Blanton get into it! It is a Star Wars philosophical battle royale (ok, maybe thoughtful discussion) on the ever-controversial concept of "balance” of the Force. Balance is a big deal in Star Wars - it's basically the main job des...