Thinking Lately

January: Mortality 📖

Johnathan Croft — Fri, 01 May 2026 00:50:00 GMT

This is my review of the first month of readings for my book club. I originally intended to only read one story from each author, but I enjoyed all the stories so much that I ended up reading additional stories from each author. My first few posts will have differing layouts as I figure out what writing style works for me.

What was read

Book Club Reads: The Death of Ivan Ilyich (Leo Tolstoy) & The Dead (James Joyce)
Bonus Reads: The Two Old Men (Tolstoy) & Eveline (Joyce)

Spoilers ahead, and I would greatly encourage reading these stories on your own before scrolling further. The bonus reads are significantly shorter while still presenting similar themes to the book club read.

The Death of Ivan Ilyich

“Maybe I did not live as I ought to have done?” it suddenly occurred to him. “But how could that be, when I did everything properly?”

The Story

Ivan Ilyich is a very successful judge in his time. He had a high-paying job, a parent-approved wife, and the right social circle for a judge. However, while hanging curtains, Ivan fell and absurdly received a mysterious terminal injury, which forced him out of his meticulous routine. As he approaches his end, he starts to question his life and if he made the “right” decisions.

Ivan lived as if life were a perpetual social performance. Almost as if he never grew out of the “high school” mindset. He was always trying to do what he thought “they” would approve of. This vague social standard of what a “successful” man should look like led to a hollow and unfulfilling existence. Even as he dies, his “friends” did not seem to care that much about him personally, only about his job opening. While Ivan was not a hero by any means, I still found myself feeling for him throughout the story.

Analysis & Questions

Tolstoy’s style was eloquent from the start; I immediately felt for Ivan as I read about his “friends” at the funeral. The story was written in a way that felt raw and unfiltered. It forced me to reflect on what an “authentic life” looks like. It brought up two questions:

What is the right way to live?
Is a lifetime of “wrong” redeemable with a last-second authentic moment?

Reflecting on your own choices through Ivan’s eyes is an uneasy feeling. My personal philosophy has generally been to aim for more “net positives” than negatives on the karma scale. And since I’d want to be forgiven for my own errors in judgment, I found myself willing to forgive Ivan as well.

The Verdict: 5/5 will read again

This was a great story that invoked introspection. It was very easy to read and follow, but the question of “What if my whole life has really been wrong?” is one that I keep coming back to, even months after I finished the story.

I’m not giving a detailed review of The Two Old Men, but I highly recommend reading it. This is a shorter story that poses similar questions but from a different perspective.

The Dead

Generous tears filled Gabriel’s eyes. He had never felt like that himself towards any woman, but he knew that such a feeling must be love.

The Story

Gabriel Conroy, a well-respected academic, attends an annual Christmas party in Dublin with his wife, Gretta. Much of this atmospheric story follows the social anxieties of the evening; Gabriel worrying over his speech and how others perceive him. However, the night takes a haunting turn when they return to their hotel, and Gretta hears a song that reminds her of her first love, a boy who died for her. This revelation shatters Gabriel’s ego, forcing him to realize how little he truly knows about his wife’s inner life, or his own.

Analysis & Questions

Joyce’s style immediately immerses you in the environment. Where I felt for Ivan Ilyich, I felt with Gabriel. I am still shocked by his realization at the end, and I find myself frequently coming back to two of the questions Joyce’s story poses:

Is living a “safe” life actually a form of being “dead” while alive?
How well can we ever truly know the people we love?

These questions from Gabriel’s life bring a different kind of unease than Ivan’s life did. Ivan realized he lived for the wrong things, but Gabriel never actually lived. His wife once experienced a love so intense it was “to die for”. Gabriel realizes he has never felt anything remotely close to that intensity, leading him to question if he has truly ever been “alive.”

The Verdict: 5/5 will read again

This is a haunting piece of literature that stays with you. It is deeply atmospheric and emotional, albeit slow to start. Reflecting on these stories has had a direct impact on my own life audit, pushing me to be more of the protagonist in my own story rather than just an observer.

As with Eveline, I’m not giving a detailed review, but I still highly recommend reading it. It is a very short story that does the same as The Two Old Men.

Conclusion

I gave a brief overview of each of the main stories, but all are worth reading in their entirety. This month was focused on mortality and what it means to be “alive”. All reads were very easy, and this was the shortest month of the book club. What resonated with you most, and do you have a different take from either story?

Thank you for making it this far and giving me your time. This is a part of my book series. I am catching up on them right now, but I intend to do these once a month for the book club. If you are interested in more from me, I also have a thinking lately series.

Thinking Lately No.1

Johnathan Croft — Tue, 14 Apr 2026 12:34:13 GMT

I have been thinking lately… about the gap between the person I am in my head and the person I am in the world. This is commonly known as cognitive dissonance. Closing this distance has been a painful process, but I’ve come to believe it is the foundation of integrity.

Over the past few years, I’ve been auditing my life. A year ago, my days looked entirely different than they do now. This shift didn’t happen overnight; it happened through a process of small, deliberate changes.

You are what you do, not what you say you’ll do - Carl Jung

The Power of the Pivot

In my work as a software engineer, we rarely wait for a “perfect” product to launch. We release a version that works and then improve it over time. Think of the original iPhone. It famously launched without the ability to copy/paste. Instead of waiting years for a flawless device, they released what they had and added features as they went.

I realized I was waiting for a “finished” version of myself to suddenly appear rather than just starting. Now, if I want to change a habit, I don’t try to reinvent my entire life on a Monday morning. I make a small adjustment, let it settle, and then make another one. It’s about building momentum in stages rather than failing a massive overhaul.

The Speed Limit of the Mind

We often hear that it takes 21 days to form a habit, but the reality is much more fluid. It can take anywhere from a few weeks to most of a year. I’ve found it helpful to visualize habits as highways.

Every time you repeat a behavior, you’re paving a road. An old habit is a 70mph highway; it’s smooth, fast, and effortless. A new, positive habit is a dirt path with a 15mph speed limit. When I’m tired or stressed, my brain naturally wants to take the 70mph route because it is the path of least resistance. Recognizing this doesn’t make the change easy, but it makes the struggle feel less like a failure and more like a reality. I’m just working on paving the new road.

Everything around you is going to change, as soon as you change the things around you. - Unknown

Reclaiming Intent

We are the sum of our habits. Habits become automatic actions, such as brushing our teeth, making the bed, or scrolling on your phone. However, these defaults can easily overflow and drown out our actual values.

I’ve always loved learning, but recently I caught myself “learning” through the passive scrolling of social media rather than the active engagement of books. My actions didn’t match who I wanted to be. To fix this, I had to be honest about my environment. I deleted the apps that encouraged mindless scrolling, only to find myself replacing them with new ways to waste time. I eventually refined my YouTube subscriptions and used tools to block shorts and recommended feeds entirely, forcing myself to be intentional about what I consume rather than being a passenger to an algorithm.

The Domino Effect

These small changes created a domino effect. By changing just my breakfast, and then my dinner, I stabilized my health without the shock of a total lifestyle shift. By curating my digital space, I found the mental clarity to focus more on the things I value and this overflowed into other aspects of my life.

I’m now reading more than I have in years. I find myself relating the ethics and stories from my books to my everyday interactions with my friends and colleagues. I host a weekly discussion group on ethics and I lead a book club. My passions are finally starting to show up in my real-world conversations.

Making a choice that is 1 percent better or 1 percent worse seems insignificant in the moment, but over the span of moments that make up a lifetime, these choices determine the difference between who you are and who you could be. - James Clear

Conclusion

This approach is slow. There are days when I slip back onto the 70mph highway of an old habit. But because I view myself as a work in progress, I just keep making adjustments. Incremental change leads to large maintainable results.

Is there a gap between who you are and who you want to be? Is there a small change or adjustment you can make today? Do you have any other ways to successfully change a habit?

Resources

Additional Resources

Thank you for making it this far and giving me your time. I am Johnathan Croft, a software engineer and philosophy student. This is part of my "Thinking Lately" series, which I intend to be an exploration of topics relevant to me and a space to practice articulating my thoughts in written form. This was also an abridged version of my post to “test the waters”. If you are interested in seeing more, I also started a book club below and will be posting related content there as well.

2026 Book Club

Johnathan Croft — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 03:47:47 GMT

What is this?

I have created a yearly reading list to help me read more and develop the habit of reading in a way that is less daunting than starting with a 500 page novel. This has worked great for me for January and February with me reading more than just the reading list and I am now sharing this in the case that this inspires others to join or do their own version.

Each month has a book/novella and a short story/poem all centered around a theme. Everything on this list is available as a Penguin Classic, an Oxford World Classic, or as a PDF.

Why this list?

I curated this list centered around classics, philosophy, and ease of reading. This list includes multiple works from the following great authors: Oscar Wilde, Franz Kafka, Shirley Jackson, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Jorge Luis Borges, Jean-Paul Sartre.

This list is also organized in a way that is easy to consume by anyone with an interest in philosophy or classics. January started with ~100 pages total and December will have about ~300 pages so as to build the habit over time.

How it works

I would like this to eventually have enough people join me in reading to have a monthly or even bi-weekly zoom meeting to discuss the readings. As of now I will just post my analysis/review of the reading, any questions/ideas it brought to mind, and any other commentary.

I am also posting this halfway through February, but better late than never! January and February posts will follow in the coming days.