Reaction to a dark twist in a short story idea

I just came across an idea for a short story that I posited in August of 2007. Wow, that was surprisingly dark! I think I may have been watching entirely too much Law and Order. I also think that I was trying to be provocative for the sake of provocativeness. Honestly, if done well it wouldn't be a horrible short story, but it might be done mediocre and achieve nothing but shock for the sake of shocking or be a badly written morality tale with a weird kitsch vibe. I'm not sure what I think about it. I was just surprised by its darkness.

Philebus Notes 1

(Originally written July 2, 2018 in Book 17)

This book hasn't been written in for nearly eleven years. But it seems a waste not to fill the pages. Thus, I'll continue with my Plato reading project that has dragged on for nearly two years now.

Plato's Philebus
trans. R. Hackforth
Cambridge at the University Press
1972

Introduction

Philebus is from the later career of Plato.

Philebus is not a real person; he is an embodiment of an irrational dogmatic hedonism.

The main concept of Philebus is that pleasure is an 'unlimited thing'.

Philebus

Philebus: pleasure is the good for all loving creatures; it is the right aim for all creatures and they ought to seek it.

"Hedonism and Socratism have this much in common, that they both find the human good within ourselves" (Plato, 12).

Socrates: thought, intelligence, memory and true reasoning are more valuable than pleasure.

Quiet Strength

Queit Strength: The Principles, Practices and Priorities of a Winning Life
Tony Dungy

From my Goodreads Review

This was a pretty good biography about a very admirable man. His strength, especially in te face of tragedy and professional frustrations is truly amazing. But it his recognition of what is truly important that is the most important aspect of his life story.

Treasure of Norse Mythology

Goodreads review

This was a halfway decent mythology book. I think, however, it was aimed at children and she almost talked down to those readers! In fact, it was a children's book and I somehow missed that when I picked it up. I guess I needed the talking down to, huh?

Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar

Goodreads review:

I thought that this was a pretty good primer course on philosophy, considerably better than the dry stuff I read in PHI 101! I really enjoyed the chapters on epistemology and philosophy of language (go figure that theses were my favorite courses in college). The correspondence theory of truth joke actually brought an audible chuckle out of me. Overall I'd recommend this to anyone who would like to learn a bit of philosophy without being bogged down with deep, heavy reading or to someone with a bit of philosophical knowledge for a bit of laughter at some quality Dad jokes.

Early Kings of Norway

Goodreads review:

As far as historical accounts go tis one seems to tick all the boxes: it's informative. Uh, yeah. After that, it's a pretty dry history of some juicy historical stuff. Maybe I'm overawed by History Channel's Vikings. That's a distinct possibility. But somehow this reads more like Leviticus/Numbers rather than the Orkneyinga/Volsungs Saga.

The Troublesome Offspring of Cardinal Guzmán

Goodreads Review:

I'm saddened to be finished with this trilogy. Not as sad as when I read the second book, but sad nonetheless. This book was another raucous story of stories that tied everything together and was truly enjoyable to read. I loved the logical absurdity of it all. It was like the Deus ex machina was not only the resolution of the book, but its very essence and reason for being. I look forward to reading more like this!