2-Year Anniversary of Diminishing Return

 April 14th, 2021 is the 2-year anniversary of my second novel, Diminishing Return. I am just as proud of it today as I was the day I released it, maybe even more so. It was and is a call for compassion which seems in short supply these days. If you feel the same way I do about this, you might enjoy the following passage. If you enjoy the following passage, you’ll love the book. You can find it on Amazon by clicking “Buy Diminishing Return” below. Thank you for two years of support on this piece of writing that means so much to me.

“The way things were; I guess it’s tough to imagine a reason why anyone would want that again. Back then, we at least had a puncher’s chance. All we had to do was get people to be more compassionate, which is apparently an even greater feat than stopping time. IEODs did seem to stop people from hating each other for a time, and it did seem to make things better, but only because once people had it, we stopped caring about our own agendas, our false understanding of the human condition, and our each and every socioeconomic and political issue. It wasn’t that we were taking time to understand people we didn’t agree with or that we accepted that our differences were what made life and ourselves valuable. We were incapable of allowing ourselves to be, in any way, satisfied with life in general. We all didn’t reach some reasonable agreement based on some sort of miraculous common ground compromise. No, instead, we were just so enamored with a new way to block out all of the negativity that we stopped giving a fuck. We felt we would never have to compromise about anything that would actually change the world or challenge anything in it ever again.

Back then, the solutions were difficult, not impossible, but nothing was ever solved, and we just went right on being the horrible people we are, even if we were only doing it silently in our own minds.
Sometimes I think that I wish we would all just learn our lesson, get what’s coming to us, finally reap what we’ve so poorly sewn. But always, the very next thought is that I don’t really know if I could wish that kind of hard truth or understanding on anyone, including you, including myself. 

I suppose our true nature just lies dormant with time, our vastly sprawling unresolved issues, and all of our unrealized potential. The dead girl could very well be right, if time ever does start, maybe we would have to face it all over again. Maybe all of our ignorance and hatred is just waiting there for us. Humankind didn’t invent tragedy or death or suffering, but we sure as hell made great strides in perfecting it. I don’t know if all of that can ever just go away.”

From Diminishing Return by Joseph D. Newcomer 

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