The Devil You Don’t Know
In The Devil You Don’t Know, Lindsay, Cleveland, and their guests discuss personal growth and development by taking chances and getting out of your comfort zone. Topics range from whimsical to serious and everything in between but are always relevant to growth and development.
The Devil You Don’t Know
A Conversation with Author John A. Vines: A Reflection on "The World is Angry": Murder, Meaning, And Modern Rage
A chilling premise sets the stage: what if murder became the purest form of communication? We invited author John A. Vines to unpack that provocation through his debut novel, “The World Is Angry,” a Houston-rooted psychological thriller that opens in New Orleans and peers straight into our collective nerves. John walks us through the craft choices that make the story thrum—why a friendship triangle reveals character under pressure, how dialogue can move plot without preaching, and what happens when an antagonist wraps brutality in art and mythology to justify harm.
We wrestle with why anger feels omnipresent. Social media’s incentive to “activate” us, the economics of attention, and the cultural habit of contempt all show up here. John connects those forces to his characters’ private wars, arguing that systems matter but don’t absolve choices. Peter’s pivotal turn—from revenge to restraint—anchors a bigger truth: love and hate live close together, and the difference between them is often a decision made in one charged moment. Along the way, we touch Star Trek’s logic-versus-rage, therapy tools for staying the wise adult, and the way hidden rage leaks through everyday life when we let pain write the script.
If you’re drawn to crime fiction with moral depth, to social commentary that doesn’t lecture, and to stories that ask hard questions about what we owe each other, this conversation hits the mark. You’ll hear how a killer’s philosophy mirrors the worst instincts of our era and how friendship, responsibility, and hope can still change the ending. Grab “The World Is Angry” on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Apple Books, then come back and tell us what you think. If this resonated, follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a quick review so more curious listeners can find it.
Please email us at Gettoknowthedevil@gmail.com
This is Cleveland, and Lindsay will not be with us today. She's a little bit under the weather. Uh, we had uh I think we had a too big of a weekend this last week, and we went uh wine touring again up in the Hudson Valley and did uh a little bit of a wine trail, and I think maybe the outdoors weather, uh, outdoors weather got to her. But this morning we are joined by John. Uh John, I feel like your middle initial is A, or am I making that up? Oh, that's right. John A. John A. Vines, who is the author of the book uh The World is Angry. Um, this is his debut novel. Um, and it's uh it's basically a murder mystery that's set in your hometown of uh of Houston, Texas.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's uh based in uh Houston, um, and some like different parts of the world, uh kind of put inside the book for for uh the background, I guess.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. And and and and the big hook of this book, and one of the three things that you reached when uh when we when we originally talked about this several months ago about doing the show, is that the world feels angrier uh than than ever before. Um and I think one of the quotes that uh that I came across is that this novel is for people who feel that they are screaming into the void. And I feel like when we look at the modern, you know, especially with all the stuff that's going on in government today, I do think that this is a a telling statement and that many people do feel like they are screaming into the void.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I think it's like we can hear the anger more just because of the technology and the world we live in. I sometimes I look at the history record of uh of us, of the people, and what we've done. And I feel like it's probably not different. It's just you there was just no sounding board. I mean, it's just now it's like everyone can know about each other, especially through social media, and it's uh it's ever present, kind of our kind of our anger. But I think the themes of living is still the same. How do we get through life and how do we get through the struggles and how we get through the layers of society? So yeah, kind of like it's kind of just a thought process, I guess.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's interesting. I I feel like uh Carl Sagan a long time wrote a book called The Demon Haunted World. And one of the things that uh Carl talks about in that book, one of his quotes, and I could pull it up, but I'm gonna just butcher it, is that we are with the advent of technology, it almost seems like we are the the part of the quote is like we are clutching our pearls, uh, you know, and going back in time, right? Where we are that technology has gotten us to this point where we're back like believing in myth and and and we're angry and there's like the rumors. Like when we think about like, say maybe the Salem witch hunts, right? And all those things, it started off of rumor and innuendo and lies. And it seems like technology, as advanced as we've come, as you just said, that it still has people in this agitated state, probably even more so.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and they're almost protected because like you're thinking about in the past, if you got agitated, let's say you got in a fight, it had to be face to face. But now we can hide behind being face to face. Well, when someone's online or even an email, you can show your ugliest side to someone because you know you're probably not gonna get in a fight. At least, at least, at least not in that immediate situation. Yeah. But you get you get yourself in trouble later if you ever encounter that person, right? So sometimes we feel protected. We can be we can be whoever we want, we can be this big person and show that to someone else. And but I think we still have that guilt. I mean, more normal people, even when they're when you show that kind of side to someone, they'll feel guilty about it, hopefully. Like, oh, I was really bad to that person, or I was nasty to that person. But you never know.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So tell us a little bit about yourself. So introduce yourself, what's your been your writing journey, and what drew you to uh the psychological thriller in this moment?
SPEAKER_00:Uh yeah, I mean, I've always enjoyed the artistic side of myself, like growing up. I'm I'm a geologist of a background. I grew up in Chapo, North Carolina, college town. So I was around a lot of friends who were kind of intellectual, I guess you could say, and we all like to read books. We always like to talk about subjects and try to kind of be as open-minded as possible about like the rules we live in society. So I think for me, I've always been curious about just hearing what others have to say. So I think writing for me, I mean, I always like when I was younger, writing in a journal or being part of a literary club, like in schools. Uh, but I mean, a lot of times you when you go to college, you pick the things that you're good at and you can make a living off of. So that's what I did. But I always had in the back of my mind that this is kind of like something I enjoy to do. It's kind of a release. It's almost like therapy when writing, it's almost like a therapy type of situation. And I think people find those type of things that make them enjoy. It could be a hobby, it could be anything like that. So for me, I finally a few years back, people kept on saying, You always talk about writing, but you never do it. So I say, Well, this time I'm gonna do it. You know, so I just decided to say, well, let's sit down because a lot of times you're scared to try something because you might fail at it. So it was just more like you need to set time aside. It's not like something that's just gonna jump from an inspirational standpoint, but you it's like anything else, you have to put the time in and just see where it goes. So it kind of went that way. And the psychological was more about I actually started to try to write more of a character-driven story, something that's a little bit like um boring storytelling, I could say, but not necessarily so if you're a good writer. So I said, well, every story needs tension because anytime I watch a movie or you read something, there's gotta be tension. So for me, I thought, well, okay, I'm gonna write these three, these three main characters, which I want to explore, but also want to explore um something else. Um, the tension part, there'll be another character, the antagonist. So I said, well, let's try to do this kind of killer, but the killer is also gonna be, he's gonna be espousing on his views of the world. That's a big component in how he sees things and how he justifies his way of life and as kind of a murderous type of life, if you will. And then he's also connected to one of the main characters. So it's gonna be this storytelling. I was trying to say it's like when you're right, if someone's writing a song, you gotta have a catch, you gotta have a hook, you gotta have something that people are gonna be entertained with. It's not just something you just write down journal-like, but story type. So that's how it kind of came about in a kind of a me free-flowing right now, if you will.
SPEAKER_01:No, no, that was perfect. What you you answered all my questions. What inspired the story behind The World is Angry? Yeah, what inspired?
SPEAKER_00:I guess one, um, I wanted to have these three characters, like I said, and it's about friendship, because for me, friendship's important, it's always been important. So I wanted to draft a story that was trying to see their world. And then I also wanted to kind of have them. They had they had their own kind of things they had to resolve with their own past. So this character that they were trying to chase, who was the serial killer, it was kind of them uh confronting their own past and how they could become better people. So that was a part, that was an inspiration about that, and just drawing on kind of my own reading in my own life, because, like you say, what makes us angry? I mean, I think we're kind of a victim of our own kind of worrying or things that make us angry. So, like being a reader, I've always been a reader. It's just something you want to do. It's like an appetite, you got to feed your brain every day. So, but the trouble is you start reading everything every day, and it can bother you, but then you gotta release it somehow. So I think the inspiration by the behind this ultimately is like, yeah, you want to craft a story, but it's also kind of you can't escape your own viewpoint on the world, how the how the world imprints on you, and then how it affects how you behave around others. So you kind of like it's I like to hear other people tell stories that way too. Because stories are kind of their sounding board, but they're not doing it in a preachy kind of way. They're doing it kind of in a storytelling type of way, if you will.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. For me as a as a as a kid who grew up on Star Trek and Reading X-Men and Marvel Comics when they were good, that's I I like to be controversial. Um that is what like good storytelling is, right? Like you don't you I I kind of what kills me about storytelling today, and I'm I've become the old man that's yelling, get off my yard, is I do feel that it's become a medium that folks are lazy when they write, right? And so this idea that the world is angry that you're talking about in your own book is like you're actually, I I feel like from from reading the book is that you're you're trying to mirror some of the social unrest. Like in addition to telling a psychological thriller, you set this book in and starts off in in New Orleans and then moves the action to Houston. But I feel like there's like a social mirror that you're trying to hold up there in addition to telling um a story. And I think a lot of writers don't know how to do that successfully today, right? When you look at an old show like Star Trek or The Twilight Zone, they could tell a message and not be preachy. Uh but today I feel like a lot of writers struggle with, well, well, how do I tell my message and and not be preachy? But I think your book does a good balance of of that. So I I wanted to explore the protagonist's dynamics, uh Adam, Peter, and Laura. Like, how do all of their, what was their how did you imagine their relationship and how did it grow and evolve over the course of how you conceive them to what they actually ended up to on the on the paper?
SPEAKER_00:Uh yeah, I mean, kind of conceiving them is just based on my own experience where I think friendship can really make a place. Like when you're in a place and you feel all alone, but then you finally found this person that's in your life, it can really make you feel like, wow, this this becomes my place now. So, and I had that my experience in my whole life when you just like suddenly some person just comes to your life, you don't know why it comes, but it just came out of nowhere. So that's kind of like the Adam and Peter situation where they're both new to a town or city or Houston in this place, and they just kind of bond and they're kind of opposites. One's a strong character and one's kind of a more of a weaker character, if we will, but not weaker, but just more kind of passive at the time. So and they share those both those kind of lives they they lead. Um, and it just kind of comes together, and then and then Laura comes into picture because uh I wanted to have a triangle. A lot of times in my writing, there's always a triangle. There's kind of a woman, there's a male, male kind of situation. So that kind of comes into play and it kind of brings out the softer issues. So I wanted to explore that whole thing because with dialogue, dialogue's important to me. Um, so I like the trying to put piece, interpiece dialogue, and how a story can move along with the dialogue completely in place.
SPEAKER_01:So yeah, that triangle is that kind of that classic setup of uh if if you remember Star Wars, I'm also gonna say when Star Wars was good. Uh when Star Wars, we have that like that that combination of Luke, uh Han, and Leia all on an adventure together, right? And it was and it was that that kind of dynamic is looks like what you you're going for.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, sure. And and yeah, I've kind of done that in my new uh new novel, that's a different story. But I always I like that triangle aspect. It can kind of uh create someone you kind of feel attached to that you have emotions for, and you can see where they're going with any type of like situation they're gonna you're gonna come out with the story. So yeah, I I think I needed that instead of just two people. Um, I think three people. I don't know why I always shift to three people. Even a lot of stories, it's like there's like three characters usually, and then you kind of all these other characters that kind of come around what the three characters are doing. Yeah, perfect.
SPEAKER_01:You know, well, I'm I'm gonna move on to to the next question that I have for you. And and and this is another quote is there but the book brings up the ideas, what if murder became the purest form of communication? You know, that's a really chilling idea, right? And so in in this in this idea that the world is angry, what is the killer trying to say through violence? And how did this this idea occur to you?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's funny. I'll kind of be free-flowing here because when you say these type of things, it just makes me think. And I think as a person, we always it kind of my immediate thought is we try to we want to have experiences in our lifetime. We were born and we kind of die over a lifetime, hopefully. And it's like, oh, I want to have this experience, or this experience would be nice. But there's always crossing lines. So I was thinking about like killing. What if like just now in the moment? It's like, what if killing is something like, oh, that's something I want to experience too? And what would that feel like? What would be all those kind of like feelings and thoughts? And that's kind of dark. This is really dark. But it's almost like when you a lot of times we take things for granted. We go to the grocery store to pick up a piece of meat, but do you realize a lot of people don't think about what's the consequences behind that? Something died, right? I mean, would you be willing to go out and shoot a deer or go kill a cow or do that process? But you're you're willing to kind of let your mind not think about it when you're doing the shopping that we do every day. And I'm not I'm not, I mean, I'm no vegetarian, I'm cool meet on either, but I'm saying killing is like for this character, my point was he kind of it became like any other action. And for him, it was choice, it was all about I have this choice to make, and it's my choice alone, and I justify it in that kind of vein, if you will. That's kind of like he justified, said, Well, this is the reason why I'm doing it, and now I can do it because I have that ability to do it. And he wanted to do it in kind of an artistic way with my storytelling. He thought it through like with mythology and how he could craft the mythology into present-day type of situations, right? So that's kind of the background of the antagonists, David.
SPEAKER_01:And then how do you feel that that, you know, captures these this moment? Like when we see um, you know, it was interesting, is is I had originally wanted to do this earlier, uh, and time just got caught. We've just been on a busy schedule for the last couple of weeks. Uh, but I think like right after you, we we originally were gonna do this, um, not right after, it's a couple of weeks after the Charlie, poor Charlie Kirk uh was murdered. And it really made me, it really resonated with me, right? That this idea that that the world is angry. Um and so like as a society, like how does this concept, you know, what is the commentary of even what David is trying to uh accomplish or what he's doing, how does that reflect on our greater society, like this moment where you know, where we can't even have public discourse anymore, right? And I don't necessarily agree with everything that Charlie Kirk said, but I don't think that anybody should become angry enough that they decide to assassinate or murder someone.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I mean, yeah, I think I was just watching like uh a thing this morning just about the American Revolution. And I think we as a country is uh our experiment just to go and say, okay, we're gonna be governed by the people. And it's self-evident. I mean, even when they put that kind of comment in there, no one's ever done that in the history of humankind, to put that kind of like equalizing statement to humanity. But we couldn't even do it. I mean, we still had slaves, right? Even after we did that, and we still had a society that couldn't agree on each other. And I mean, even like Abraham Lincoln, even when he was around, half the population hated the guy. But we still think he's the greatest president we've had, or one of the greatest. So I think in today's time, we're we're kind of at that that that cycle that kind of I think just continues in in American societies where we have a group of people, we have two groups of people if you want to, if we want to be simplistic. Um and they seem to be this kind of this extreme, either one side, extreme or other side is really pushing all the people in the middle, or the people in the middle are just like, oh, whatever. I'm still gonna go to cafe, you guys can argue. But then it's just it just takes a small part to do what, like you said, kill kill someone like a like Kirk, or people trying to do that because they get so kind of like angry that's what we're using. They it's just kind of hate. Um, they just hate something so much that they'll act out, they have no other option, they have no other thing, and they're they're just looking for that kind of thing that's gonna Yeah, it's interesting. I don't really have an answer, but I just it's I just think we we like to kind of have two parts out there, and they're definitely always fighting each other. But you're right, it's like we should better have intellectual discussion about it, and uh, but then it just sometimes boils over, you know, unfortunately.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely. Like I grew up in Brooklyn in the 1980s, and it was uh there was a period in the 1980s if you stepped on uh somebody's shoe. Oh man, who was I talking to the other day? Oh, yes, I was uh I'm a psychotherapist um uh in my other career, and I was talking to um a colleague who was telling me about the senseless violence that you know has impacted them. There's this there's this idea in psychotherapy that it's called um secondary trauma. And secondary trauma is when you sit down and you listen to enough stories over and over again of so many people that it now starts to impact you. And like you become uh emotionally desensitized or emotionally upset and emotionally distanced. And one of the stories that this colleague told me is like, you know, um, you know, somebody that they that the biggest one of the biggest tragedies that they had as a social worker was a young man who was a good student, uh, who was a good kid. He was playing basketball um in uh in the in the local projects here in in Brooklyn several years ago. And uh he beat a guy at the game. He beat him, and the guy was like, play me again. And the guy was like, and the kid was like, nah, you know, I gotta, I gotta, you know, I got school, I got class tomorrow, you know, I gotta, I gotta, I got class, I got school. And the dude's like, no, you're gonna play me again. So the guy plays him again and he beats him again. And at the end of the game, without a word, without a without saying anything, the guy pulls out a gun and guns the kid down just because he's angry that he lost. Right. And that is uh a wild amount of anger, right? Arthur C. Brooks recently, not recently, it's a 2016 book, wrote a book called Love Your Enemies. And John, exactly what you were saying, like this idea that we should be able to get along, we should be able to have intellectual conversations. John, um Arthur Brooks actually makes the argument that America is obsessed with, even from the um the creation of this country, it's obsessed with being contemptuous of other people. Is obsessed with like my opinion is better than your opinion, and you need to sit down and shut up, and I'm gonna angrily like shout you down. Whereas love is what we need, and love needs to be replaced. Uh anger needs to be replaced by love. And it's just a really interesting uh concept, and I think the book captures that. Um, what scene, from what you remember when writing this book, best captures the story's emotional temperature? Uh and when I say that, I mean the moment where anger turns into like a revelation.
SPEAKER_00:Uh I think there's one scene that just jumps out to me is um it's where you start to find out stories back history where he's like talking about what happened in LA, where he was a kind of a police officer, a detective there. And he kind of his partner and him fell in love with each other. And then even at that part, when she was killed and the killers in that situation got away, he found himself chasing, and without regard, he was gonna kill those people no matter what. It's kind of like the movie seven in some ways at the end where he says, I'm gonna kill this person, and that person knew he was gonna cross that line because I'm so angry at this person for doing what he did to something that this other person loves so much, you know. So I think love, it's interesting. Love and hate are very close together. Yep. And I think you're right. If you can love someone and you don't even need closure, it's what the closure is on your side of forgiveness and releasing and not having some last closure type of conversation with someone. I mean, I think it's important for some people that they need that, but ultimately the closure conversation has to be within. Um, but yeah, in that the book, it was just Peter is like crossing that line, even though he loves someone, he was gonna let hate control his actions if he had that that that time. But I think at the end of the book, he was his new love, um, was taken, right? And being held hostage. And he was saying, I don't want this to happen again. So he found a way to overcome something that he thought was going to repeat. So I think ultimately we kind of learn as we go. Obviously, this person who shot this person had some deep psychological things going on that caused him to just it's almost childlike. It's like, how did this person ever escape that type of mentality? I know I'm probably simple simple um simplifying it, but it's like if you're on the playground and someone takes your toy, you just kind of hit them out of no regard, right? So that's kind of like I think that that's what made makes me think about, but it's something deeper than that, even that I mean and it's kind of like sometimes when you get in a fight with someone and they argue about spilt milk or the the table, the the chairs outside, they're not really angry at that. They're angry at something else. And they manifest it. They're just looking to kind of that that's that fuse just to explode, I guess, or so that's what I look at a lot of times with people and confrontation, if you will. Sometimes people are just like they say they're mad at you for what you did, but it really matters something else, right? Something that's out there. So you gotta go, is everything okay?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, in a in in a marriage, I think um, you know, thinking about that idea of anger in a marriage or anger in a family, uh, author uh Terry Real says that when you in these moments where we become angry or become flooded with anger, it's important to, and and I think you even going back to that example of the uh of the boy who got shot on the playground, it it goes back to uh Terrence Real says in these moments you have to continue to be the wise adult, not the adaptive child, and right, and it anger is like kind of related to childhood. It is the simplest, it is even in your book, is right, this guy's trying to communicate his anger, but it is the simplest, the most basic form of communication. Like I'm mad, I'm gonna kill you, right? There's no nuance, there's no, there's no as artistic as this guy is posing the bodies is there's still at the end of the day, I'm angry, I'm gonna kill you. I'm angry, I'm gonna destroy it, right? When you think about I'm I'm you know, I'm like I said, I'm a science fiction guy, Hulk Smash, right? That is basically, you know, Bruce is saying a lot in in that moment when he's saying Hulk Smash, but that's the disappointment, that's the anger, that's the rage. And so that I think that's what anger gets you at the end of the day. It gets you just more, doesn't give you any solutions, it just creates more anger and more hurt, right? Um and we can definitely see that with many in the wars and the conflicts around the world. As we wrap the segment up, what do you hope readers take away from turning that final page?
SPEAKER_00:Uh for me, I'm always a big believer in hope. So it's more about um, I like people who have difficulties because we all have difficulties in life. I mean, they're they're gonna be there until we die, right? Um and it's just how do you internalize them? How do you kind of see them, not just from your point of view, but from everything that's around you? And um and just trying to get through and being like the best person you can be, full of hope, and kind of getting kind of uh a new path if there's a new path you want to go on. Because all these characters are kind of in transition. They come, they're a little lost, and then they kind of overcome this great challenge, and then they move to a new stage that they feel like is the right stage that is gonna be good for them. So I think I think that's for all of us. I mean, I mean, I probably didn't draft that in the story, but that's what I think when I'm writing is like we're all kind of moving through life and we're all making changes and we're just trying to be better, right?
SPEAKER_01:So I think that's as it I think that's as it well. As we start moving on into the final segment of this, um, I just want to get your you know, you're an author, you're just trying to write a piece of work, you're not trying to uh change the world. But I do want to get your your personal insights into uh the current culture of why the world is angry today. And and I think we touched on it a little bit earlier, at least, you know, part of what I see, um, and Jonathan Hayde also talks about this in his book, The Anxious Generation, about this this time that we live in, is social media has, and we touched on it a little bit, has created this like this this this this endless feedback loop where you can be angry and angry and and and and author Jason Pargin, who's one of my favorite authors, uh, talks about what the job of social media is, is right, it's to keep you activated, right? It's to capitalism is for you to buy something. The way you get somebody to buy something is you get them activated, and social media is a product that keeps you activated. So in this time of fractured attention spans and performative in social media lives and and rising public numbness, like how is this mirrored in like in both fiction and reality? And how could you mirror this idea in your book a little bit?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I yeah, it's a good question. First off, just talk about like our day, like where we are right now and how we are. I mean, that's really complicated. I I don't think I have the answer to that, but I think I might have a partial answer to it where but when you look at society, I think we're changing a lot. I mean, you have AI coming in and people are getting fearful. You hear about Amazon probably eliminating thousands, tens of thousands of jobs. So I think we have a society where we're all trying to survive, and there aren't a lot of changes. I mean, even social changes, and I think there's just some groups that just say, like, wow, I don't like all these changes. I mean, you can even hear the simple thing like, oh, back when I was growing up, this is the way things were done, and oh, you guys aren't doing this. So you have all this kind of reflection, but people don't like how things are moving. So then you start getting this kind of this way or this way. And that's kind of a simple way of putting it. So I think we're just starting to see those, like, when things are changing so rapidly, it can just kind of make people go like you have these stupid statements like make America great again. Well, I thought America was already pretty good. You know, it did it didn't need to be made great again. I mean, and the path you're doing is not really making it great. It's kind of it's great in your perspective, but it's not great in like the wider perspective. That's just my opinion. In my book, um, I think going back, I think that's the the thing. I think society's so layered, and those layers have to interact with each other. And I can say, well, there's kind of like a temp, there's a percent of people that just have there's just they got what they got and they are where they are, and there's kind of a bottom layer, and you just see that every day. You can see homelessness, you can see people who are struggling, and and then you can see the middle group, and they're still struggling too. And I just think it's just like a French Revolution. Sometimes the top, you're just gonna rebel against that top because you feel like things are just being not kind of equalized. I mean, you look at society and it seems like it could be a better way. I don't have an answer how to do it. It just seems like we could be in a better state with each other for sure.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, when you think about um, we're just going back and not to go get political, um, but when we think about and we look at how Donald Trump had this rise to power, right? When you talked about the French Revolution, Donald Trump um is a is a capitalist. And so he understands that to be um capitalism is based on emotion. And and he tuned into that emotion of uh of a of a group of Americans who are increasingly angry. Who, when I I used to work for a media company and I remember an analyst there saying um that the reason why he was pretty sure Donald Trump was gonna win again is that there is a segment of America who's out there, like many of the characters, like the character in your book, that's like, you know what, burn it all down. Like I absolutely don't care. And I want the guy in charge. I'm so angry. I want the guy in charge who's gonna burn it all down. And it and this guy was like, no, I'm she's like, I'm pretty sure. And this is before everything happened. This analyst was like, no, I'm pretty sure he's gonna win. Because I think a lot of people are angry, and a lot of people are like, yeah, burn this all down. When we think about your book, did you consciously channel any of this real world dynamics when you when you crafted the novel, well, the novel's tone or thought about the characters, like any of the on any of the situations going on in the world today?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I mean, well, it's kind of a universal thing, but like you talk about capitalism. For me, capitalism, and I mean, I'm not trying to be like anti capitalism.
SPEAKER_01:No, no, I love I love money.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, but capitalism too is uh it's a it's a it's a trap. No, it's it's a thing that we're all involved in and we can't get around it, right? We have to live, we have to survive. But I don't distinguish anything in society when I really think about it. Where, like a doctor and a prostitute to me, are the same person because they're in the same system. They're all trying to make money, they're all trying to survive. So I think in the book, what I'm trying to say in some instances is we're trapped. We're all in this thing from the moment we're born to the moment we die. And it's not the most perfect system. Um, and it benefits a lot of people, but then it also doesn't benefit a lot of people, and then a lot of people just have to work from skin to bone just to get by, right? And I think I'm trying that's kind of the background in a lot of my storytelling is that struggle. And also trying to say all of us are equal, and you shouldn't, you know, we have laws, you can't do this, we can't do that. But a drug dealer is trying to make money in the system just like anyone else, right? And that and and if you think back on it, and you can judge people and you can do all this stuff, but I think at the end of the day, when you have an imperfect system, you can't judge people too much. That's kind of like what I'm trying to portray a little bit. I don't necessarily do the best job in that, but I kind of put that in a lot of my stories that I try to put out there. That's what we live in, that's our system. And somehow you gotta kind of deal with it, resolve it inside yourself. Um because I don't understand. Sometimes I I don't the French Revolution should happen if you think about it, because there's not that many rich people. There are a lot of rich people, but there's a lot more unrich people or poor people. Couldn't they just overcome and take over things? But they don't. Somehow we just let the system keep going. And then, like I say, I'm not trying to be super capitalist or like a communist. I'm just trying to look at the system the whole system we live in and trying to rationalize it and see how we behave in it, I guess.
SPEAKER_01:Right, yeah. No, no, the system is one that's designed to make you angry, right? The system is one that's designed to elicit emotion. And right now, unfortunately, the media has come to learn over the last couple of years that the boast that it's like I we're gonna stimulate you. There's a couple of ways to make money, right? Back when I was a kid in the 90s, it was like sex sells, sex sells. But I think with the rise of social media, it it's become more than sex sales, it's emotion sales, making people pissed off sales. You know, let's let's let's make the most explosive, you know, uh titillating headline out there. I live in I live in New York City, and I swear to God, the New York Post and the Daily News are in a constant competition of who can make the more uh headline to make you angry or to incite you to action. And so unfortunately, I think what's happened in the system, and I love money and I love capitalism, but I think what's happened in this naked aggression uh of the system that we live in is that uh emotion elicits engagement. Engagement, the easiest way to engage somebody beyond engaging them you know in in pornography or in a sexual fashion is to engage them by making them angry, right? And I do think that of the biggest the one of the reasons why we we become addicted to anger or or and addicted to contempt and pointing the finger at other people and blaming other people is because that's how we've been trained since the rise of social media, right? You don't go on Facebook and people be like, isn't that so lovely? You know, it was I saw a rainbow today. People are on there trying to make other people angry, right? You get very few people that are on there that are trying to, you know, actually heal society. You're not getting anybody like a Martin Luther King or a Jesus Christ or a Gandhi. You're getting people who are trolls, you know, who are saying things to hurt people's feelings, and they're getting, and it doesn't, and and it, you know, as as Floyd Mayweather said, a fan that hates you is still a fan nonetheless. And right, and so they're getting these clicks and engagements and you're getting these provocateurs that make money by keeping people angry, right? And so the question I want to ask you, and it goes back as we as we're starting to wrap up here, and and I think you touched on it, is in your eye in in the idea of your writing, and and and you're I know all your writing is not just based on anger, so I don't want to pigeonhole you on that. But in the idea of your writing, when you when you when you are talking about things, do you talk about them simply from a personal level, like say in this case, we're talking about anger, or do you talk about it to on a system uh a systemic level, like of how these how these characters are stuck in this, not only how it's affecting them personally, but how they're also stuck in a system?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I think it's a little bit of both. I mean, I mean, I have my own anger and I try to kind of resolve it and I try to do it in a way that's gonna be more productive versus destructive. So anger is like if you're always angry, at the end of the day, I don't think that's gonna go very far. I mean, it's it's a way to do things. Um, and I know people who who are that way, where it's like that's just their motivator. And and it can be like it depends on how you are. Like I remember playing sports when I got angry, actually I felt like I played better. But then sometimes you feel better if you're just at peace or you have this kind of calm. But there's all motivators, I think the system can make you angry, like you said, and I think that's that's part of it too, when I'm telling these stories is having people I mean, I meet people all the time, and I meet some people that this is a true person. This person, I just love the way they approach life. And I kind of want to put that's that's the kind of character I put in some of the of the writing, like and you're envious of those type of people because it's like how can they handle that type of kind of going through? And and just to take a step back, you were talking about like in Martin Luther King. I mean, it's kind of interesting in today's society. You try to look at the wider population, and you say, like, who is that person? And when we take that person seriously, and for me, I felt I love Obama when I when Obama's around, he was full of hope. And when he talked and he talked about his viewpoints of life and the world, I was just there. I was like, Yeah, I'm there with you. This is I think the way we should go. I don't think people wanted that, you know. It's kind of like would a Martin Luther King really work in today's society? I mean, I think it worked because it was so bad then, because if we had segregation, you had to have someone to kind of people follow now. Society is is equal and it's not equal, but it's a lot better, of course. And people can be transgender, I mean, but they're gonna be ridiculed at the same time, but it can be that way. But back in the 60s, no way it can be that way. I mean, there were that way, but it was kind of hidden, and just like we have always had a race issue in our country, unfortunately. But I don't know if we can have a Martin Little King just because it's not so bad as it was back then. Even when you have Obama and things are bad, and he's trying to say, like, let's have hope, let's do this, and his speeches were so powerful, and his way of thinking was so powerful, but it just didn't work, you know. I mean, Trump is doing shit that Obama would never get away with. I mean, it's like ridiculous.
SPEAKER_01:Listen, Obama wore a tan suit and people went crazy, and Trump can do whatever he wants and people and people, and there's a segment of society that loves it. But it goes back to what Arthur C. Brooks said is there there's an aspect of us that is is obsessed with contempt. There's an aspect of this American culture, human culture that is obsessed with anger. And when when the simplest thing could be love. You know, here's the crazy thing. I I I you know, uh Martin Luther King, if you know, uh, if you know anything about comics and you are a writer, so you know you know what a retcon is, right? When someone when something is retconned. Oh what's that? Retcon is like retroactive continuity, right? So it's like it's if you've been reading comic books or like say in Star Wars, like when those terrible second Star Wars movies where Luke's where Luke Skywalker suddenly walked away from the force. That's a retcon. That's like that's this idea. Well, Luke never, you know, really wanted to be the last Jedi. And so in our retroactive continuity, it's like when a writer takes something and rewrites it. Like the current version of Martin Luther King is a retcon. This idea that people loved him and he was universally loved. If you know anything about him at the end of his life, he was hated. He was hated by uh by black people, he was hated by white people because he was he started challenging everyone to like, well, okay, this is not just about race, this is about what's the war in Vietnam, this is about poverty, this is about a lot of things. And people began to hate him because he was speaking a message of unity. Uh, same thing with Malcolm X, right? Malcolm X, when he started moving away from the radicalism of radical Islam and went to Mecca and saw that, wow, real Muslims are yellow, they're white, they're black, they're brown, they don't all speak the same language and they exist in brotherhood. When he brought that message, when he brought that message back to America and was trying to pivot and do uh uh go in a new uh inclusive direction, he got killed. Um, and it goes back to this idea that we always kill our prophets. And there does seem to be an aspect of the world that is obsessed with anger. There's um a new song by uh Chance the Rapper, and uh and it's a it's a um it's a I think it's called like Poor Poor My Blood or something like that, but it's a rap about like in one of the lines, it's him in Jay Electronica, and they talk about if Jesus was alive today, he'd be banned from Facebook and the government would throw him in jail. And so there is this aspect of it that it does seem like people, as much as Arthur C. Brooks says, like everybody says they want to love each other, that there's a component of it that people just want to be angry. And so the one of the last questions I want to ask you before we wrap up is so it seems like that rage is always hidden, right? And so in the book, and in and both in in your book and in real life, how does hidden rage erupt in both the novel and in our daily lives, right? Where people hide that rage or pretend that they're not angry, but still have it bubbling deep down inside.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I think in the book, the serial killer, he he has a connection with uh lore. So, and he can't have it kind of in the book at one point he's he he was trying to get away from his bad parts of his life, the parts that controlled him, and that being that he he found a like, he found this like to killing and he was good at it. And then he met Laura and he kind of said, Well, maybe I I don't need to do this. Because he really didn't have that in his life, he didn't have that type of love. Um his parents were just kind of like, Oh, you do whatever you want. They weren't like mean to him, they just weren't engaging. Um so but he felt ultimately he didn't get what he wanted, right? He didn't get this person, and he thought that was gonna make his life different. So then he kind of that was a whole revenge thing. He wanted to go back to his way that he knew he could do, and he wanted to combine it with art, but he ultimately he was just trying to get back to her and her friends, which were the new friends she made, so he was gonna go kind of track them down. So it's kind of like that was the rage um that he took. Like you're saying about Malcolm X or um, it made me think about singers in a lot of ways. Sometimes we fall in love with these artists or musicians, and we and if you're at the early part of the career, you're like, man, they're so authentic. I like their music so much, and then they start putting out later stuff, and like they're not the same. It's almost like we can't let people change. And when we can't let people change, we can't resolve that. And I think that happens a lot. I mean, another example is like when you have this kind of unfortunately, you have uh uh this kind of violence between a husband and wife, and one's like maybe divorcing, and they just can't let go, and it's hard, of course, and then it leads to like kind of a like a murder, suicide type of situation, or just violence where you just take this out, and it that's just like the person in their mind just has to think, and they just can't deal with that, they just can't deal with it, they can't deal with that change, they can't they can't get over it, it's just too it's just kind of like that pain. I mean, we can rationalize our things in our mind, but it's also we got this feeling in our gut that's below our minds, and that's kind of like I think some people just it hits people so hard, even though we can rationalize it, it's just we can't cross it with our heart. I think that's kind of that's how the rage goes. I mean, that's something I'm kind of still trying to explore, how that happens with the people, myself, and just society, right?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, you let the emotion, you let the emotion take over. Um, you know, you know, I was actually uh just finished reading a book uh by John Gwyn uh called Don't Believe Everything You Think. And he talked about um, you know, it's a very short book. If it's if you listen to it in audio format, it's like less than two hours. Uh but one of the one of the things that John Gwynn thinks talks about is kind of what you just touched on right there, is this idea that if I could just control my thinking, right? If I can control my thinking, like it's not the thing, it's our reaction to the thing, as Albert Ellis used to say also with the if you know what our R E B T rational emotive behavior therapy is it's like you have the choice to how you react, right? You can react in anger or you can say, hey, you know what? It's not that big of a deal, I'm gonna let it go. But oftentimes, the especially the emotionally stunted, the emotionally immature people react with anger. It reminds me of the Vulcans from Star Trek. Uh, and I don't know if you're were you Star Trek guy at all, John? Yeah, I love Star Trek. Yeah, I love Star Trek. I was actually after called sci-fi. Oh, I love everything sci-fi. You for I'm uh we could we could we could talk for hours on that. But when you think about the Vulcans of Star Trek and you know anything about their history, why did the Vulcans do if you you tell me, why did the Vulcans decide to become logical if you remember the lore in Star Trek? What happened to their homeworld, if you don't remember? So I don't remember. So so the reasons why the Vulcans were became logical is that they had become a planet that they're that they were so angry. See, I'm I was I'm not even deep into Star Trek as I used to be, but I do love that about the Vulcans is they had become a planet that was so consumed with anger that their prophet, I uh the the person that came up with the Vulcan philosophy of logic was like, hey, we can't be this way anymore. We're going to annihilate ourselves. And so what Vulcans became is they became ultra rational, maybe to an extreme extent, to where the Romulans left and was like, yeah, you guys can have that, and we were go build our own empire. But that is the concept of that idea, and it made me think after listening to that that if you're not angry, then you're happy. And so I kind of almost realized I was like, well, wait a minute. Maybe the depiction, the depiction of Vulcans in Star Trek is a little too stoic. Maybe people who are logical would just be happy all the time. They wouldn't be, well, fascinating. But maybe like, wow, that's a wonderful thing. Yeah. And and and be more and be, because I don't think like, I think people think that, and this is one of the points that John Gwynn makes in that book, Don't Believe Everything You Think, is that managing your emotions doesn't mean that you have to be stoic. It means not giving into the worst parts of that emotion, which one of them is is anger. Um, and so that's pretty much it. Um, with that being said, I John, tell us about uh where we can find your book. Uh, where is it on sale? How long has it been on sale? Uh, tell us where we can find you, and tell us a little bit about more, maybe if you if you can share what you're working on next.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So uh yeah, the book, the current book, The World is Angry, is available on Amazon. It's probably the easiest way to get. A lot of people buy their books there, but you can get it at the other kind of places too. Um uh note Barnes and Noble. There's other outlets, um the iBooks with the Apple store, things like that. And I I'm not a big social media, um, I've just uh got my regular Facebook page. And then uh with the self-publishing, there was a John A. Vines, I think, official that was kind of put up on Instagram. So you can go look at it there. And then um yeah, the new kind of things I'm uh actually speaking of sci-fi, my second book is a sci-fi action thriller. So it's kind of two friends that have a startup company, it's an AI company, and they are manipulating people's minds. So one of the uh You mean you mean real life?
SPEAKER_01:That doesn't sound too fictional.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah. But it's it's kind of based on real life, but it's using like quantum physics because I'm a big kind of like I'm not big, I'm a big science hobby junkie reader. So I've been well reading a lot about that. Yeah, you're right, these type of things are being done. But what I was trying to do with this kind of story is like, well, one, it's kind of about control, too, but one is kind of trying to use it, trying to get inside people's minds and make it look like they're talking to themselves to convince them to do things, but it's really someone behind it. So, and then the other one is kind of like, well, there's a region of the brain that hasn't been developed from an evolutionary standpoint. So he's trying to tap into that and see if we can kind of do telekinesis, so it's kind of like can we use our mind to move things? So these two people have conflict, one's trying to benefit society, one's trying to control it, and then of course, there's a woman involved, so I like the triangle piece, so it's just kind of two friends, and then they kind of have differences, and then they end up fighting, and the and then also the government gets involved because it's the new tech that they want to steal, of course, and control.
SPEAKER_01:This doesn't sound fictional at all, honestly.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, but I'm putting it in a story. That's how fights. That's what I'm working for.
SPEAKER_01:Sounds good. Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. And when do you think you'll have that one finished by?
SPEAKER_00:Well, it's finished. So now she's just chopping it to the litter agents. I'm waiting to get more feedback from those guys.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, well, good good luck with that. You know, definitely drop it to line if you want to come in when that book's released, if you want to come back on the show and talk about that also. I'm a big sci-fi guy. I could have nerded out for hours here without Lindsay here to stop me. Um, but she should hopefully be back with us uh on our next conversation. Um, my final word on it is I think this discussion has has shown us that anger is inevitable, but the destruction that it brings isn't, right? And I think the world is angry, shows what happens when we let rage write our story. And I think, you know, it's important to remind us that love can help us. Love not anger can help us write a new ending. Uh, John, any final words on your part before you go?
SPEAKER_00:No, I've enjoyed it. I enjoyed talking with you and having this kind of discussion. It's always fun. So thank you for letting me uh talk and letting me I love to hear what you had to say too. So this was great.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, this is good. Good conversation. Okay, with that, this has been another episode of The Devil You Don't Know. Can we keep the lights on?
