Wayward

My pending novel The Wayward School for Girls was not meant to be a novel. It was supposed to be a short story. It grew as I wrote it. As of today, March 22, 2024, it is over forty-seven thousand words long. Yet another chapter is necessary to finish the book. Then again, “one more chapter” is how this short story became so long.

Imagine Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz and Alice from Alice in Wonderland as best friends. Carrie from Carrie is their age and goes to the same school.

The story is surreal horror as an action-adventure. The principal of the school is a warlock and the teachers his coven. They indoctrinate the students into believing that “learning” is smart and thinking is stupid. The children are brainwashed as their education. Their “school projects” are them used as unpaid servants.

Alice, Dorothy and Carrie are in the “gifted” program. They are being groomed to become witches. Most of the other girls are used as labor or as guards. The “special needs” girls are buried alive and rendered undead, to power arcane devices.

Dorothy is the good girl. She is flattered to be considered gifted… but horrified when put to a test that nearly kills her. She realizes she is expected to become like the adults who put her in such a cruel situation.

Alice is the bad girl. She is already cynical, so is not surprised when put to a test that nearly kills her. She does not mind the horrible things that are expected of her… but resents that they are expected of her. She dislikes people trying to control her.

Carrie is a girl without friends. She submits to the evil of the school to have power over the world that rejects her.

The story is violent. Dorothy and Alice are the heroines. They slay monsters but they also slaughter the brainwashed girls sent against them. Carrie, a lonely girl is one of the villains.

There is a point to the weird novel I am writing. The message is not its social commentary. It is that FRIENDSHIP is the goodness in the world. The heroes are friends. The villains are enemies. The lukewarm many are victims of both.

Did I mention killing? There is a lot of killing.

Wholesome and Perverted Alike

It is assumed Jesus has the views of a prudish old woman. He created breasts and buttocks yet has no interest in breasts and buttocks.

God is the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. The Father is God. The Holy Ghost is his Spirit, a thing he breathes for inspiration. The Son is the Word of God, the breath of God as the Holy Spirit.

“And in that hour, this Son of Man was invoked before the Lord of Spirits and his name in the presence of the Ancient of Days. Before the sun and the signs were made, before the stars of the heavens were formed, his name was invoked before the Lord of Spirits.”

TRANSLATION…

“The Son was presented before the Holy Spirit and his name ‘Jesus’ in the presence of the Father. Before Lucifer was created or had a use, before the angels were formed, the name ‘Jesus’ was petitioned before the Holy Spirit.”

IN OTHER WORDS…

The source of everything was what it was before anything that began even existed, or had a reason to exist. The purpose of Creation is not within Creation itself, except as its Creator, Jesus.

AS I WAS SAYING…

The Lord is the lord of good and evil alike. All things wholesome or perverted are of his making. All of it is his.

When Jesus was baptized, he was filled with the Spirit. His thoughts and feelings were overwhelmed with unimaginable thoughts and feelings. The Spirit then led him into the wilderness to be tempted by the Devil, to see whether good or evil came of the inspiration.

Thoughts and feelings are not good or evil. What comes of them is one or the other. To fret thoughts and feelings is to be like Peter: You shall sink into the turbulent and murky depths as he did. To make something of them is to be like Jesus: You shall change everything for the better.

https://www.deviantart.com/yellowplasma

The One True God

Our religions are used to control us… but so is law… and science… and entertainment… and eventually politics.

We are indoctrinated by our institutions. We side with a faction as if the rivalries for control are struggles of good against evil.

Cynicism comes naturally. If allowed to fester, it becomes nihilism.

What to do?

Care about yourself… and act accordingly. Defer gratification if it is detrimental to your well-being. Do what is actually best for you. Consider your talents and make the most of them.

Care about others… and act accordingly. Defer gratification if it is to their detriment, regardless of their consent or not. Do what is actually best for them… without controlling them. Appreciate their talents and support their efforts.

Believe in God. Atheism is nihilism, despite the sophistries to the contrary.

Which god?

Believe in the one true God… or else you are worshipping yourself, one way or another. If your god is the mortal and only human, you have only yourself to blame. Shame on you.

Believe in truth, not yourself. Pride is vanity. Do not live in vain. Humility is thoughtful. Actually think about things.

Have a thought entirely your own. Express it in words. If you cannot, you are mindless. Your thoughts are nothing of the sort: only what you are taught to think. You must think for yourself if you think to know God. You shall learn, with your own eyes and ears, that he is indeed the Truth.

Heroic or Not

The “hero” of antiquity was evil on the inside but excellent on the outside. His evil was not “evil” to the ancients, but rather normal. Sin was acceptable, so long as the sinner was loyal to the tribe and nation.

As a Christian ideal, the HERO is excellent inside and out. He is morally superior, not just a better warrior.

The “villain” of antiquity is someone against the tribe and nation. Good and evil have nothing to do with it.

As a Christian concept, the VILLAIN personifies evil. Even if he is sympathetic, his agenda is unfriendly to the innocent, regardless of the tribes and nations.

The “antihero” is the hero of antiquity from the modern perspective. The very idea of an “antihero” is entirely Christian, even among those who are not Christian.

Samson was a hero of the Old Testament as an antihero since the New Testament. He was not a villain, though he committed murder out of anger or to pay a debt.

Jesus favors heroes and villains. He prefers antiheroes to those who do nothing. Be fired up for him or cold against him. If you are lukewarm, he shall spit you out of his mouth.

Imagined Value

Art is meaningful if it has something to say. It is assumed a political message is most important, but that is untrue. We are most effected by what makes us think about our own lives.

Grandiosity is not what you are about. The Big Picture is not your portrait. It is the common things that define you. The most important things in your life are the least important in the world.

You are lost in the crowd. Your friends and family are lost in the crowd. When the world needs slaves, you are enslaved. When the world is at war, you are its cannon-fodder.

The people in your life are special to you, not to the world. You are special to them, not to the world. STOP fretting the world!

I write books and illustrate the covers. The stories and pictures are always about the unimportance of people. It is usually in the context of heroes killing nameless baddies. It is often about antiheroes or villains committing the recreational murder of strangers.

The heroes and villains are the main characters. Unlike us, they are important. We are their easy victims. Losing ourselves in the crowd is our only way to survive them.

LOVE and FRIENDSHIP are what make YOUR life meaningful. They are the meaningful themes of art and fiction accordingly. None of the others matter without them. They distinguish pornography from romance, for example. They make violence heroic and death tragic. They can sublimate anger and hatred into morally satisfying drama.

https://www.amazon.com/stores/Shawn-OToole/author/B07C28S75Z?ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true

Goodness Personified

What is wrong with the world?

Poverty? Famine? War? Disease? Inequality? Racism? Sexism?

NO!

The results of the problem are not the problem.

Evil is in the heart. It is nowhere else. An evil thought is in the mind but only as a thought. The actual evil is within the person as the person.

The very idea of “social justice” is the notion that good and evil are external. They are thoughts affirmed by those who do the thinking for you.

Actual justice is entirely personal. It is indistinguishable from freedom except as a concept, which is neither, for concepts are thoughts. If our opinions decide good and evil then those in power decide what is good or evil because only their opinions matter.

How do you treat people when you have power over them? Do you brag about your power? Do you use it to control these people? Do you expect them to acknowledge that you have power over them?

Unlike you, the Holy Spirit does not have power. He is power, all of it. He is the Lord of Spirits because he is very thing that effects everything. He is also goodness itself.

It is assumed by this world of sin that evil is stronger than good. This is because the sinners rationalize their evil as goodness. They have a right to be thieves and murderers, for whatever reason.

The Holy Spirit is unreasonable. Your wages of sin are death whether you had a right to sin or not. You shall burn for your wickedness, because you are flammable for it. Blaming others shall not avail you, for the Lord of Spirits does not hear you. He does not see you. You are not even a “blip” on his “radar” for he is everything and you are nothing.

The Son of Man is your only hope. He is goodness as a man. He is the Holy Spirit as the one who sees and hears you. He is the Ancient of Days as your friend.

Heaven and Hell on Earth

A fear of nuclear weapons is sensible. They are the only technology in all of history that can destroy civilization. They can render humanity extinct. They are not why war is horrible, however. It was horrible when the weapons were sticks and stones.

Dozens killed in a war between villages of hundreds is just as bad as millions killed in a war between nations of tens of millions. Huts being burned to ash is as horrible as cities being bombed into rubble.

Wars are not worse than they have ever been. More people are killed and more things are destroyed, but proportionate to how many people and things there are.

You can argue statistics. You may say I am wrong because a greater percentage of this or that during then or now, blah, blah, blah. My claim is true regardless.

If your world is your village, is its destruction not the Apocalypse?

One man stabbed or shot does not feel less pain than many men stabbed or shot. His few loved ones are not less sad than the many loved ones of the many.

The Great Tribulation shall be the worse time ever. It shall end with a war worse than all others. Civilization shall be in ruins and humanity on the verge of extinction. What makes this moment hell on earth is not the death and destruction, though they shall be hellish.

GOODNESS is the peace beyond all understanding. It shall be taken from the earth. The god of this world cannot take over this world until goodness is taken out of the way. Wo unto you if you are still here when that happens.