Weapons of Destruction

Before you light that match...

I began drafting this post before yet another headline‑shattering act of violence made my morning coffee taste bitter. I don’t intend to unpack—or moralize—that single horrific event here. What I want to explore instead is the more insidious casualty: thought.

When I wrote Iteration, I thought I was telling a grief story—Malcolm MacKenzie, a brilliant inventor paralyzed by the loss of his only child, desperate enough to believe biotechnology can undo what death stole away. But as the pages turned, something darker took shape. It wasn’t his tech that became villainous. It wasn’t society or greed, not exactly. It was a simple idea: that love, even in its purest agony, can become a weapon of mass destruction.

As a novel, Iteration operates on multiple planes. Some readers say it’s a cautionary tale about capitalism: how resources warp grief into calculation. Others sense a warning about unmoored innovation, where technology isn’t developed—it develops us. Yet each interpretation reveals something essential: the real danger isn’t in what Malcolm builds. It’s in what he allows himself to believe.

This is why I find it so compelling when readers share their interpretations. They’re not mapping my intent—they’re charting the terrain of their own fears and hopes. And in that, the story breathes.

What fascinates me most is this: we rarely recognize that our most monstrous weapons aren’t physical. They are thoughts. We train societies to fear bombs, guns, plagues. We stockpile defenses, strike preemptively, legislate away our freedoms. And yet, the mind—which shaped those weapons—goes unchecked. And because it’s invisible, its destruction is promiscuous.

Humanists offer one antidote: man is basically good—the corruption is external. So rebel against systems, fight injustice, build reform. Montessori devotees suggest fresh starts—that children are tabula rasa, unmarked slates awaiting nurturing. Others insist evil originates in the heart, as elemental as gravity.

All of these hold some measure of truth—yet they don’t quite answer the how. How does a thought mutate from abstraction into atrocity? How does grief become genocide, how does fear give birth to mass suffering?

Here’s what Iteration suggests: through obsession. Malcolm’s grief doesn’t fester in solitude; it intensifies, loops, infects. He convinces himself he can wield resurrection like a scalpel instead of a curse—until the tool and the wound merge. And that’s the transformation. It’s not the invention that kills. It’s the devotion.

When a thought becomes non‑negotiable, it gains momentum. Ranked above empathy, above the living, above consequence—that’s the moment creation leaks into catastrophe.

In that sense, the novel’s real antagonist isn’t a rogue corporation or a malicious AI. It’s a belief made absolute: If I could undo death, I could conquer grief. And that kind of certainty unravels bodies, communities, even reality.

There’s a lyricism in this kind of destruction. It’s not splashy like an explosion. It’s quiet. Cold. You’d never hear it coming, because it detonates from within.

I ask myself: what are our human weapons of mass destruction, right now? Is it ideologies we won’t moderate? Traumas we refuse to unpack? Technologies we unleash without reckoning? Beliefs about superiority, destiny, or nihilism—or about the only way to be safe?

It starts with a thought, sure. But the real breach happens when we stop interrogating it.

We like to think the fix is simple: find your people. Build a tribe. Surround yourself with others who “get it.” But more often than not, that just builds echo chambers where our most dangerous thoughts are no longer questioned—they’re amplified. Instead of dismantling our inner weapons, we mass-produce them. Shared pain becomes policy. Shared grievance becomes gospel. And suddenly, we’re not alone—but we’re still not free.

So here’s the reckoning I offer: the answer isn’t found in waring for the future or deleting the past. It’s conversation. Reflection. Doubt. It’s humility in the face of our own minds.

It's not enough to be seen—we have to be questioned. Because real safety isn't found in agreement, but in the kind of community that helps us lay our weapons down and celebrates when we do.