The Ends, the Means, and the Mirror

The truth doesn't coddle.

I write to better understand the world around me. The people. The systems. The good, the bad, and everything in between. It doesn’t matter if I’m working on a novel or writing this blog.

At the end of the day, my core motivation is the same: To discover the truth of things.

And I’ll be honest with you — it can be exhausting.

The truth is rarely convenient. It's never comfortable. It doesn’t bend to my assumptions or flatter my desires. Committing to it requires humility and, more critically, self-restraint — two qualities our culture seems to value less with each passing year.

It also means staying open — not just to what’s being said, but to who’s allowed to say it. Truth doesn’t thrive when we pre-sort voices by category before we even hear the story.

The truth isn’t just a destination. It’s also a discipline.

Take Malcolm MacKenzie, the protagonist of Iteration. On the surface, he has everything — wealth, brilliance, a public image that still feels grounded. But beneath it all, Malcolm is a man forged by tragedy, haunted by loss. He’s learned — wrongly — that vulnerability gets you killed, and that restraint is a tool for manipulation rather than integrity. His unspoken modus operandi? The ends justify the means.

He’s not a villain. Not to himself, anyway. He’s a mirror. A case study in how good intentions, untethered from moral clarity, can evolve into something monstrous. And he’s not alone.

We see versions of Malcolm everywhere — in boardrooms, politics, social media threads. Sometimes, if we’re honest, in the mirror. We lie, cheat, rationalize, all while convincing ourselves we're the injured party. So our anthem becomes: If I only had X, then I'd finally be okay.

It’s the same deception whispered to Eve in the garden, and it still seduces us today: If only I had this one thing…

In Iteration, Malcolm gets that one thing — or so he thinks. He has the means. He takes the shot. And what follows isn’t just a high-concept sci-fi spiral. It’s a modern parable about the ancient ache to rewrite the past — and the future we forfeit in the process.

Which brings me to a question I’ve been wrestling with — not as a writer, but as a person who lives in this current cultural moment:

Is this story less valid — less worthy — because of my genetic or cultural heritage?

Because that’s the subtle — and sometimes not-so-subtle — implication woven into certain strands of DEI discourse: that the value of a story rests not just in its content or craft, but in the identity of the person telling it.

Let me be clear: discriminating based on identity is wrong. Deeply. We need different perspectives to understand the world around us — and ourselves. The industry is better for it. I am better for it.

But honoring identity can’t come at the cost of limiting it. We talk about “expanding the table,” but maybe it’s not about expansion at all. Maybe it’s just about refusing to restrict who’s allowed to pull up a chair.

When we reduce storytelling to a function of demographics — when we suggest that certain identities are inherently more truthful or relevant than others — we risk discarding stories like Iteration before they’re even read.

Maybe that’s not just a loss for me. Maybe it’s a missed opportunity for all of us — to engage with ideas on their own terms, not just the terms of the teller. Because the moment we stop evaluating ideas based on merit, and start filtering them through identity alone, we’re no longer pursuing truth — we’re managing optics.

I don’t write stories to prove a point. I write stories to ask better questions. To challenge what I think I know. To confront my own blind spots, biases, and self-deception. Not to posture — but to understand. To become a better version of myself. To know how to love my neighbor as myself.

That’s the work. That’s the point. That's what it means to be human, no matter the acronyms of the day.