HeyJaredBecoming The Main Character
We're going to discover the world's greatest stories and the important lessons they hold. Each episode will take you on a journey, transforming how you see life through literature's most powerful narratives. Hamlet will teach you why you shouldn't put off making that big move.
- Indexed episodes, last 90 days
- 5
- Latest publication
- Sep 29, 2026
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- Earliest in this view
- Jul 3, 2026
Latest episodes
The Regret of Achilles (opens the original)
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Achilles, the greatest warrior in Greek mythology, knew his fate: stay and fight at Troy and die young with eternal glory, or go home and live a long, forgotten life. He ended up with the glory and the early grave. Then, in the land of the dead, he told Odysseus it wasn't worth it. It's one of the most powerful scenes in Homer's Odyssey, and Christopher Nolan left it out of his film. This episode goes back to the Iliad and the Trojan War to find out why Achilles ended up there. He thought he was
Why A Nation Creates Its Own Mythology (Pt. 2) (opens the original)
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In a continuation of our series on why mythologies and folklore are useful to the identity of a culture, we continue diving into the stories that have cemented themselves in the American mind. Even if these particular stories are unfamiliar, their essence will resonate with the stories you think of as foundational to what it is to be "An American", the same way the stories of Hercules or Perseus defined what it was to be "Greek". This episode is fascinating as you realize how much the idea of th
Huckleberry Finn (pt 2) \\ Making the Hard Choice (opens the original)
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We've been floating down the river having a pretty good time so far, but the events of the last chapter have sobered Huckleberry Finn up a bit to the uglier side of life. But we're back on the raft with Jim, with more people to meet, more life lessons to be experienced, and more dangers to be faced. Let's settle in to the rest of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn------------------------ Sign up for 'BTMC: Protagonist Edition', where you get the full story the day it releases, plus EXTENDED VERS
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (pt 1) (opens the original)
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What happens when you take a story that is controversial enough to be frequently banned from libraries and mix it with an author who doesn’t care what you think about his writing? You get Mark Twain’s “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”. But why is a story about a boy floating down a river so scrutinized? Some reasons are obvious, but others are less so. All I know is I found the character of Huck to be a great study in choosing what matters to you. So come on in, the water is fine...for now. D
Why a Nation Creates Its Own Mythology (Pt. 1) (opens the original)
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Why does a culture need its own stories? Can't it just borrow someone else's? The USA is too young to have formulated a mythology like classic civilizations did, and yet from our early years we still ended up creating fictional stories that are inherently ours. Why? In this special episode to help celebrate the 250th anniversary of the nation I grew up in, I explore a couple of reasons for this, and I share examples of stories so baked into our belief system of what it is to be "American" that w
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