I guess I better write it down. Preferably somewhere I won't lose it.

The fictional book has a dystopia. There's no convincing the reader it's a dystopia. There's no carefully pointing out how certain actions much like what commonly occur in our own world are a big part of how it's a dystopia. There's no trying to convince the reader of what's right and wrong. There's certainly no grand scheme for fixing the whole world. There's just hero/s whom are finding ways to cope with the situation. Not exactly just merely surviving. But finding/applying positive coping mechanisms.

Along the way various insights may be included but never ever in a manner that they get in the way of the story at all.

It may be that to a large extent what could have been learned will simply fly over the readers head. Oh well. There is fiction and there's nonfiction.

...I think of Devo. And how their message, which wasn't really that hidden, (but was partially hidden as it would have pissed a ton of people off) was missed by almost everyone it seemed. Devolution. We're evolving into a stupider race. Our idea of a good time is getting drunk and laid. Being really (noncompartmentalizedly) smart is like having a disease.

They weren't hiding it much.

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Mongoloid he was a mongoloid
Happier than you and me
Mongoloid he was a mongoloid
And it determined what he could see
Mongoloid he was a mongoloid
One chromosome too many
Mongoloid he was a mongoloid
And it determined what he could see
And he wore a hat
And he had a job
And he brought home the bacon
So that no one knew
Mongoloid he was a mongoloid
His friends were unaware
Mongoloid he was a mongoloid
Nobody even cared

A guy has Down's Syndrome but no one even notices because everyone else is at about the same level. Endless such songs parodying everything in our culture that disgusted them and, for all their preachiness they might as well have been mumbling grocery lists.

So it flies over everyone's head. Oh well.

Vancian coping was stoicism. That's why it appealed to me so much.
Salvatore appealed to me in that the dystopia/versus the compassion of the hero resounded with my own life. His coping was also.. stoicism.

Another coping is turning things into the absurd. Another is focusing on the welfare of others instead of the self. (Thank god for children?) What else? Religion/mysticism/art..., love, well... then maybe endless others. Could say everything is a coping mechanism. But focusing on the coping mechanisms of 'the hero'.

The books that gave a euphoric feeling had the hero's with coping mechanisms that were new to me.

There is also Ayn Rand's heros. Her coping mechanism was thinking you're superior to others and that The Game is all there is. Endless competing against all other people. The individual against all others. That is Life. That is The Way. Love it. Become it.

Such is the coping mechanism of a monster.

There is also Milan Kundera's coping mechanism. His was showing that yes, he agrees, life is horrible. Look at this. See? I understand. I agree. But I'll go further. I'll show you that it's even worse then you thought. In fact it's so bad that what you must do is give up. And turn to relatively small bits of happiness. Like a nice hot piece of ass. A beautiful sunset. That's all one can hope for.

Kundera is probably right but a real hero would not agree.

I do believe in evolution.

I think our ancestors were single celled organisms with no ability to "think"; that certain mutations improved their ability to spread their genes.

That ultimately we exist, we are alive; solely to try to keep staying alive. This "thinking" thing we developed has... sometimes really increased our ability to spread our genes. But there are many other beneficial mutations that are highly illogical.

So much of what we do is ultimately pointless and bizarre. It's... stuff related to what was generally beneficial mutations that doesn't necessarily make any sense in this very different world today.

I ruthlessly pull back the curtain; strip everything bare and scream at the result. (And one of these days I'll check the proper use of a semicolon...)

At the same time I've recognized that atheism is wrong in that it's not thinking towards the future, it's not practicing enough forethought. With such forethought there is no reason to get out of bed in the face of the final total memory swipe. So I want "magic". I want "gods".

It's a huge contradiction. I'm pulling back all the curtains while wanting magic so bad; trying to create magic.

Something needs to be done about this contradiction. It's not possible for me to stop pulling back the curtain. I can't stand that which is unknown. Yet I desperately need that which is unknown because only the unknowable is magical/godlike/something other than ceasing to exist.

And everyday is like an entire life. Waking up and trying to quickly retrace the patterns in my mind; the important patterns; why am I doing such and such again...? Some days my mind just is too tired. Some days I fail. Some days by 4pm I'm ready to punch whoever so hard I'll decapitate them.
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Another pulling curtain example from long past very quickly and partially slapped down:

The heart of sex is just some bizarre illogical thing going back to single celled organisms. We can greatly heighten the enjoyment of it at least mostly by adding really ugly things on top. Suggestions of power, etc.

Like I talk really intelligently while caressing some lady's breast and she just about goes bananas. Ugh. She thinks I sound intelligent and that suggests power and that adds so much. It's reproduction plus latching on to someone who will even better ensure her genes will be passed on. Thus totally biologically, the beneficial mutations kick in. Etc. Ugh. Could go on and on. Can't stand to.
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Too intelligent. Devolution. That beneficial mutation called thinking went too far and quit being beneficial.

Expressing anger

Just supposing one was still devo and occasionally forgot and went back to believing in evil, and feeling hate and anger, in the spirit of honesty should they express this anger?

Never express anger unless you are very close to actually using some force. Expressions of anger are Only a message that you think the person in question is evil (causing harm and just not caring, not possible to be reasoned with). All such expressions do is potentially cause the person to feel fear and thus you have indeed reduced the interaction to Force instead of Reason. We're all devo and feel anger anyway, but unless you're actually about ready to go beyond Reason, you should simply be Dishonest and Hide this.

Honesty isn't always the best policy. Finally. For the first time in my life I'm saying this.

For me you could express anger and it'd be OK. I have empathy and can see the pain which caused the anger and that you've reached a point where you feel like I'm just not even trying to understand. But apparently the vast majority of manking isn't like this. Everyone else sees the anger and assumes the worst; they assume force may be coming any second, and apparently that completely takes precedence over any attempts at empathy.

Express sadness only. And if that doesn't work, float away on the postindustrial wind.

Devo

In the beginning there were lots of little tribes scattered asunder across the world. Some prospered and grew. They eventually ran into one another. Sometimes, maybe at one time even most of the time, these meetings were peaceful. But there were some aggressive tribes who simply killed whom they met, later instead reducing some to slavery, much later still putting a rightwing president in charge of an unregulated third world economy.

The peaceful tribes were destroyed one by one. Slowly the agressive ones survived and reproduced and grew unto empires; blood thirsty abominations such as the Romans who spread across the globe.

Now the logical end has been reached, with each nation just varying degrees of the same idea, with entire nations being basically sophisticated slavery. (No longer any need to even take care of one's slave property.)

And within these groups, the benefit of being agressive to one another (although the idea of morality/community isn't completely gone) is quite real.

The backstabbers get ahead. The power hungry get ahead. The Good do quite often get stomped upon. And those that dare to question society instead of simply obeying the traditions that have us here today are viewed with hostility and worse.

And so we really have been and continue to evolve in a negative direction.

The mormon polygamists: How does a movement like that manage to grow? What kind of woman thinks that sounds like a good idea? Only someone who grew up in it. And they have a ton of children, thus their movement grows.

There was a music group named Devo. The name stood for devolution. (Which is an incorrect usage of the word suggesting not understanding how evolution actually works but I'm certain they did understand how evolution actually works.) The band members were students at Kent State when the protestors were shot. In fact one was a few feet away as a student was gunned down and they were put under martial law.

Their idea was that we are evolving in a negative direction. That being dumb, wanting to have lots of sex, and being aggressive was how one increased their chances of reproducing nowadays. They had to be sort of careful not to put that out there too clearly. And so no one even really understood. But they sang songs about getting laid, etc... exactly like all other bands were doing. And people loved it.

The founder recently said of devolution that "It's all over. It's happened. We're fishes in the sea."

People who openly talk of such things are viewed with quite a bit of hostility. It suggests elitism and eugenics and so on. It is more complicated of course. People aren't That bad. And there's no solution anyway. It just is. If anything it's wonderful the degree to which people are nice and peaceful to each other despite it.

Maybe because those are good qualities to have in slaves.

But intelligence is not really such a great quality in a slave. That would mean questioning society. So, nice, but... "unmotivated" to think....