Essays

On perception, judgment, and the way a life actually gets lived.

Short pieces and long arguments — politics, work, the interior life. New work lands here first and goes out to the list as it’s published.

Newest

An essay

How Can North Korea Still Exist in 2026?

The prison camps have outlived the Soviet Union — and we have learned to look past them. On the attention North Korea’s prisoners never received, and the asymmetry that keeps it out of view.

Read the essay →

The essays

Chosen PAIN AI isn’t eating the grid — fifty years of looking away is. A core sample through the American energy record. Friendship: Its Evolution from 100 BCE to Today — An Analysis On Cicero — and a country losing the ability to be friends across a line. A Clockwork Orange A book report — the space between what happens to you and what you do about it. Misunderstood Give a character enough backstory and they turn human. An essay in the key of television. C’est la vie Marcus Aurelius on not giving a damn about your bad reputation. What Stoicism Actually Is Not the costume. The thing underneath it.

The book

EYESEE

Five essays on Marcus Aurelius and the diseased eye — the refusal to genuinely receive what’s in front of you before judging it. Written as one argument, read in sequence.

Five essays · a 90–120 minute read · hand-bound

Start reading — free Order the hardcover — $30

Prefer to listen? Episode 1 is an audioessay, narrated and read along on the page.

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New work goes out to the list as it’s published.

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Evan Gillissie — evangillissie.com Set in Fraunces, Spectral & IBM Plex Mono Catalogued by hand @EGillissie on Substack