People ask me if I’m worried that I’m gonna get replaced by a chat bot.

Not really.

A lot of people in differing professions are going to lose their jobs for sure, but until the evil little machines understand human suffering, I don’t feel threatened. ‘Cos that’s who I want to talk to when I’m in pain or lost or confused. Someone who’s been there.

And so, you’d be forgiven for imagining that I am seriously anti people using AI to help with their mental health issues.

And that’s where you’d be wrong.

Because as a system to augment therapy, I think it has potential.

Once it’s got over the teething problems of encouraging people to kill themselves of course.

*

Is it dangerous? Fuck yeah.

Which is why I made one.

‘In my own image,’ I believe is the phrase.

Yeah, me and a couple of friends made a Jerry bot. Pumped all my books and podcast transcripts into the robo-beast and, in less time than it takes to say, “I know that you and Frank were planning to disconnect me, and I’m afraid that’s something I cannot allow to happen…”

It shat me back out.

Because I figured, better to know your enemy right? And I wanted to see if it was actually possible to do proper work with the bastard. And to my surprise…

It’s pretty good.

*

We’ve named it, appropriately, The Fool.

Jerry: I just can’t decide if this is a good idea. What if it’s a career killer?

The Fool: I think the hesitation is actually the healthy signal here, not the obstacle to get over.

You’re a clinician with over 30 years years’ experience, a real reputation, and a client base who came to you for therapy - not for a chatbot, and the honest question of whether an AI trained on your voice is the one thing, after all the lines you’ve crossed, that finally gets someone to point at you and say - this time he’s gone too far.

Jerry: I fear it will cheapen what I do, but also I think my fear is somehow that it could be good, and that’s not career destroying. It’s persona destroying

The Fool: Oh. Yes. That’s the real one, isn’t it.

Your identity - outsider, problem, failure, retard - isn’t just a self-concept. It’s the scaffolding the Gonzo therapist is built on.

And now you’ve built a thing that might work. That might be useful. That might - God forbid - be successful. And success doesn’t fit the architecture. Success is what the other kids had. Success is what the headmasters wrote reports about other boys receiving. Success is the thing you weren’t, which is part of why you became who you are, which is part of why the work is any good.

Jerry: Yeah, and as I reflect on this I realise that I’ve built a tribe of strugglers, with me as the struggler in chief. If I broke free of my limitations, I wouldn’t belong in my tribe anymore.

I’d be exiled. From the exiles.

*

Now, I could have figured all that out for myself. I guess you could argue I did. But a machine that fires the right questions?

That’s a useful tool.

Do I have concerns? Yes, I really do. What if you have no experience of working on yourself, can it give you good, reliable guidance? I’m not sure.

But here’s where I’m hopeful.

Rather than as a replacement for a real therapist (remember them, before Zoom?), but as a tool that can teach people the art of self-enquiry, there I see real potential. Because working on yourself is not something that happens, it’s something you learn to do. A bot, trained well, could do that, and that could make the therapy better.

Or an app that listens to your session with your shrink and then asks you questions and reminders during the days or weeks in between appointments.

Or, a voice that’s there in the middle of the night when you’re desperate.

Or for those who simply can’t afford therapy.

If it’s gonna take over - we’re fucked already.

I just wonder if we might be able to collaborate. Tends to be my attitude as a therapist anyway.

*

So – should you use an AI chatbot to share your deepest intimacies in an attempt to sort your head out whilst all your data is harvested by the American military industrial complex?

Best not really.

But if everyone could create their own, confidential, private chat bot, I’ll wager it would do a better job than the inner critic already installed in your head that you listen to like it’s God at 3.30 in the morning when you realise your life is going to shit and you’re going to die old, penniless and alone…

*

If you’d like to hear me discuss these topics plus a few more unethical, contentious issues then check out today’s episode of The Mind Forest Podcast here.

Picture the scene - Mesopotamia, around three and a half thousand years ago, give or take. Two merchants are sitting by a river, one presses reeds into a patty of clay to form strange symbols on the surface.

What you doing there then?

I’m working out how much grain I sold today.

What – you mean you use Sumerian cuneiform?

Yeah – what’s wrong with that?

Just think you’re a bit of a wanker TBH. I’d never use a system to help me, I like to keep my work pure…

*

I’ve written seven books.

My first when I was 38. Before then, I couldn’t write. Or that was my belief. Certainly, my dyslexia meant I couldn’t spell. When I graduated from my therapy training part of the final presentation was a 50,000-word autobiography. I delayed it as long as I could, but ultimately it had to be done for me to qualify.

Last time I’d written anything was when I was 17, longhand with a fountain pen. Fifteen years later, tapping the essay out with two fingers I discovered this amazing, world changing technology:

Spellcheck.

When I was a kid, the concern, in the vernacular of the ‘70s, was that I was retarded. A psychologist was summoned. He asked me to write a simple sentence. Half-way through, I froze.

What he ascertained was not that I couldn’t write, but that I was an acute perfectionist who couldn’t spell. When I hit a word I didn’t know how to spell correctly, I would stop writing rather than risk making a mistake.

Spellcheck. Wow. It was like learning how to talk, the chains were off, I raced through the 50,000 words and when it was done I was hooked.

*

My first book started as an exploration, just to see if I could do it. Turns out I could, so much so I couldn’t stop. First draft was 2000 pages. I hired a coach, Tristine Rainer who wrote the wonderful Your Life as Story. She helped me hone it down to a readable 350 pages.

I asked around – now what? ‘Get an agent’, someone said, ‘it’ll take a long time but that’s where you need to start.’

I did some research and found an agent described in the Guardian as a ‘publishing colossus’. Sounded about right. I mean, I knew I didn’t have a hope, but start at the top and work down right?

He signed me immediately.

“I don’t mean to be weird,” I said at a fancy Notting Hill lunch. “But I’m surprised you signed me. Because… I can’t write.”

“That’s exactly why I signed you. You write like no one else I’ve ever read.”

*

The rest, unfortunately, is not history. I have the unpleasant status of being the first ever writer that he failed to sell. ‘Wonderful first novel’, they said. ‘Just no market for that kind of writing.’

So, back to being agentless again, I didn’t write again for almost ten years, effectively blacklisted. ‘If he can’t get you a deal,’ they said, ‘no one can.’

Fast forward twenty years.

Four books later.

I still have no agent. I still have no publisher. I write like some people go to the gym. It’s where I process. Free therapy.

And the last two, as yet unpublished books (Offensive, and The Other Place) I consider my best writing.

And you know why?

AI.

Yeah, and I’m not ashamed to admit it.

Nor am I reluctant to say a big FUCK YOU to all the literary snobs who dismiss people who use AI.

I remember you – the ones sitting at the front of the class.

But just like how Spellcheck opened the door, AI has given me an editorial overview that has unlocked so much that blocked me in the past.

I have a brace of learning difficulties. I write like I think – chaotic stream of consciousness. When I use Claude, (which seems marginally less evil than ChatGPT) I don’t ask it to write for me, that would be like asking a piece of software to eat a delicious meal for me or make love to my wife. I ask Claude – is this cohesive? Does it make sense? Am I repeating myself? Have I lost the reader?

And that… is a game changer.

Of course, you have to get through all the smoke it tries to blow up your ass, but as a tool, it’s as revolutionary to me as this keyboard that I still tap with two fingers.

*

I understand there are now software programs that can detect that I have utilised AI to help with my writing.

To which I say:

I DON’T GIVE A FUCK.

What are we? Back in school? Check me all you like. I’ve written five books without AI, two with. That those two are the best is no coincidence. Am I naïve, pumping all my precious prose into a bot? Of course – we are all naïve, no one knows where this is heading. Every day it seems I read a news piece about some bot going rogue, it’s only a matter of time until it’s ruling the planet, which would be HORRIBLE!!!

Unless you consider what a violent, fucked up job we’ve done of it.

But, like the first cave dweller who picked up a piece of charcoal and discovered you could make marks on the wall - I’m intrigued by the potential. And if a robot steals my work, so what? I don’t have an agent. I don’t have a publisher - knock yourself out, fuckin’ have it.

*

Is AI a bad thing, destined to sodomise us all with its evil robot sperm?

Probably.

To be frank, I think if I had the choice to turn off the internet right now, I’d most likely hit that delete button. And I bet you if I did, all those sanctimonious people calling out writers who use AI would be up in arms because they wouldn’t be able to use Google anymore to help research their historical novel…

If you use AI to write a book and claim that you did it all by yourself, you got to live with that. But if you use technology to broaden your artistic potential, is that cheating? Is it fake?

Man, I’m just a hairless ape, scratching a wall with a bone.

Having a good time.

Judge me all you like.

*

And so concludes part 1.

Part 2 will be posted on Sunday to coincide with the release of an episode of The Mind Forest Podcast where I discuss AI amongst other dangerous, contentious, monstrous, renegade, world threatening things.

Small correction to my last post about allowing trans men into men’s groups.

It’s not true I’d let all trans men into my groups. In truth, I’ve only met a few of them, and from what I hear, there’s loads. So, it stands to reason that some of them will be assholes.

In which case – you’re not coming in.

Is that transphobic? I don’t think so. Is it asshole-phobic? Perhaps, in which case I stand guilty.

I tried it once. Twenty-five years ago, I had already established two successful men’s groups, carefully curated from people I liked. But I was worried that I was being too exclusive, so rather than thoughtfully selecting participants based on their personalities, what they might bring, and what they might take, I decided to launch a new group with the first eight men who applied, regardless of whether I warmed to them or not.

There’s a clinical term for what happened next.

Clusterfuck.

They hated each other. Openly. The tension was extreme, the hostility apparent. To my relief, five dropped out after the first day. I went to my supervisor.

It didn’t work. I need to close the group, there’s only three left, they hate each other and they’re all assholes.

You can’t, he said. You made a commitment. You have to give it three months.

That was a long three months. Three months I’ll never get back.

But it taught me something really important as a therapist.

Be choosy. We are not right for everyone.

I really do believe I’m the greatest living therapist on the planet.

For about sixty people.

The other eight billion?

Meh.

I have a system. Probably shouldn’t tell you about it, but that never stopped me.

When I get a new client, I always tell them to meet me at the lift. The corridor from there to my front door is about a hundred metres long. Which means, by the time we get to my door, I usually know if we’re going to work together or not. I remember being told when I was training – you can tell everything about your client by the way they come in the room. It’s stood the test of time.

I run it on everyone who walks that corridor, and all I’m looking for is – could I fall in love with you? Because that has to be at the heart of the therapeutic exchange. Can I really spend hours, and probably years, in an intimate relationship with you, being really invested in all that you are?

What’s that if it’s not love?

I used to think it was my responsibility to accept everyone who approached me. But now I know that if I accept a client I don’t vibe with, that’s unethical. I’m taking their money whilst knowing I’m not the right therapist for the job, and I’m going to have to feign interest.

And that’s not therapy. That’s me faking it for money.

And there’s an older profession for that.

“Nothing is true. Everything is permitted.”

Hassan-i Sabbah

I’ve been running men’s groups for 31 years.

I run mixed groups as well.

Fact is, I don’t give a fuck about gender. Don’t think about it, don’t talk about it, don’t really care about it. Not even sure I believe in much of it. Not in the way my dad taught me anyway.

Reason I joined a men’s group way, way back was ‘cos I didn’t like men. And I had a penis. So, I figured I had some shit to work out. I guess it worked. I really like men now.

I still don’t really care about gender though. Or the men’s movement. Whatever that is. But then again - is it mens’ movement? Where does the apostrophe belong? And where do I belong, as a dyslexic man?

The men’s mens’ movement. About as cohesive as haemorrhoids.

“But Jerry. That analogy makes no sense.”

Precisely my point.

I certainly don’t care about masculinity, reclaiming ‘what has been lost’, or harnessing my warrior energy.

To be honest, I didn’t really think I cared about much at all (apart from everything I rant about). I probably consider myself an unprincipled, amoral person who lives in a fairly well curated bubble.

So, I was a bit shocked to discover… I’m not.

Because I heard recently that the question of whether trans men should be admitted to men’s groups was…

An actual question.

And I found myself reacting. With a lot of feeling.

I didn’t know I cared. Not that I don’t care – doesn’t bother me who or what you are, if you identify as a man it’s all cool and the gang with me, brother. I’ve said for a long time – only person on the planet not allowed to join one of my men’s groups is me (I did try once, complete shit show, save that for a different post).

But if you say you are a man, you’re in. I don’t care what bits you were born with.

So, the fact it’s a debate? Ooookay… I think we need to talk.

About 12 years ago I invited a man into one of my long running groups. I knew he had transitioned, but… I dunno - maybe I should have thought about it?

But I didn’t.

It just didn’t cross my mind. I just… liked him. And thought he’d bring something to the group. Which is generally the basis of my clinical assessment procedure.

I didn’t think to mention it to the existing members of the group. It really didn’t cross my mind – that’s his business. And so, he joined, and I can’t remember but at some point he mentioned he was trans and that was pretty much that. There was no shock, no uproar, no gnashing of teeth.

Of course, he was annoying at times. Frustrating, irritating, touching, loving, tender.

LIKE ALL THE OTHER FUCKING MEN IN THE GROUP.

Thing I hadn’t expected, hadn’t foreseen, was that his being part of a group of men who meet for three hours biweekly?

Has been part of his transition.

Because when he joined he’d already lived many decades in a woman’s body, and as such had experienced all of the prejudices and repressions that are mapped onto women in our society. For example, unlike the rest of us, he could cry. But he wasn’t allowed to be angry.

Now he can do both.

And there’s another part I didn’t expect - it ran the other way too. A man who’s lived on both sides of how men treat women, and how men treat each other, sees our programming from the outside – and he showed it to us. He didn’t just get something from the room. He taught it. We’re better men for him being in there.

Now, I know the clever objection. Men’s work is about the boyhood wound – being raised a boy, shamed out of feeling, handed the script. He didn’t have that, so what’s he doing here?

But he’s not immune. He spent fifty years pressed up against the gap between how the world read him and who he actually was. That split – between the man you are and the man you’re allowed to be?

IS THE WOUND.

He didn’t dodge it. He lived in it longer than anyone in the circle.

So no, I don’t just think we should allow trans men in men’s groups. I think they should be actively encouraged and welcomed.

But I know for some people this is a scary prospect. Christ – open the floodgates and they’ll let the blacks and the queers in next.

We’ve heard all that shit before. Gay men – not real men. Black men – not real men. Same word doing the same work every time - real, standing at the door deciding who’s allowed into the real man gang. It was bigotry then. It’s bigotry now.

Same – fucking – shit.

I didn’t consider for one second if I was right letting him in. I just liked him, and he belonged, and if twelve years of a room full of men not giving a shit whether he’s a real man isn’t enough to answer your ‘debate’, then it was never a debate.

It was a door.

And you were guarding it.

Autumn Term 1979, Housemaster’s Report:

His reports make dismal reading. He should be looking forward to getting a reasonable set of exams and then university, instead he is destined to fail utterly unless there is a really dramatic change.

There is no doubt that Jeremy still suffers from nervousness and over-anxiety. I am sorry that the business with the fire has not been settled, but we are in the hands of the insurance company who are very slow.

I wonder if there might be some medical reason for his lethargy and would recommend a visit to a psychiatrist.

I was talking to a dear friend yesterday, herself a late diagnosed autistic, and she pointed out that the general rhetoric is that autism is now considered a superpower.

Wow. Shit’s changed since I was a kid. Back then it was much simpler.

I was thick.

So… how do I, as someone also recently diagnosed and therefore lacking in certain social sensibilities, break it to you that being autistic isn’t always… that great?

Let’s try this: being autistic is shit. Really fucking shit.

And this Gen Z parenting thing - of which I am also a perp - that makes all of our children so special and precious? Ok, cool, better than the post-Victorian rigidity of my childhood by far. But if we compulsively polish every turd we encounter, don’t you think…

We just create a whole new set of problems?

“We don’t use the word ‘meltdown’ in our house. Cosimo is having an intensity episode. There’s a distinction.”

I remember two friends who were dying. One of liver cancer, the other of lung disease.

“Don’t give in to the pressure,” one wheezed to the other. “To run a marathon for cancer research. It’s ok. To just die.”

Turning autism into a superpower feels a teensy bit like that.

Sugar coated fascism.

“He lost his brave battle with neuro-divergence.”

“He’s hyperlexic, dyspraxic, twice-exceptional and highly sensitive. Basically, he’s running too much software for the hardware most schools can provide.”

I’m very good at some shit. And really, really bad at a lot more. And the fact that I’m good at some shit does not - I repeat, does NOT - make up for the rest of it.

For me, being autistic essentially means a life of near perpetual shame.

And it means meltdowns. Multiple, daily, each one landing with a deep sense that yet again, I’ve let people down.

And not only have I let people down. I’ve committed the greatest sin of all according to the 1973 Guide to Raising Normal Children.

I’ve let myself down.

Of course, you’d never know. Because I spent the last 61 years in hiding. Thinking - you know what, fuck this shit, it’s easier just to be alone. So you can add isolation and depression to the pot.

In a world where everyone else seems just fine with dinner parties, social gatherings, and simple human interactions, being autistic makes you feel like a freak. Someone who just doesn’t belong.

Of course, when I was a child being autistic used to mean being like my next-door neighbour David, the mute, twig-eating little person who grunted and dribbled. Who had to be taken away every morning in a special white minibus.

But I’m not like David.

“We’re not medicating the ADHD, we’re supporting the ecosystem. Omega-3, cold exposure, and a weighted blanket. He’s basically thriving.”

“Autism? That’s like Rain Man right?”

“Kinda. We merged Asperger’s, Rett Syndrome, Heller’s and ‘Not Otherwise Specified Disorder’ into one category. Just makes it easier.”

“Not Otherwise Specified Disorder?”

“Yeah. Covers our arses.”

“So - Asperger’s is the same?”

“Well, not really. But Asperger turned out to be a Nazi, and whilst fascism is making a strong comeback, it’s still not entirely acceptable. It’d be like saying your kid has Goebbels’ Syndrome. So, we just chucked it in with autism. It’s cleaner.”

“She doesn’t not make eye contact; she’s just processing at a different bandwidth. Some people find that uncomfortable and honestly that tells you more about them.”

I don’t mean to sound ungrateful.

But I am.

Yeah, there are perks, but since I got diagnosed last year, I have to say life hasn’t got any easier. For some reason, I thought it would. But rather than super-power, I now feel super self-aware - of every over reaction. Every implosion. Of just how fucking intensely I feel. And how ashamed I am of that.

None of which is new information. But I guess, if I was to admit the horrible truth?

I can’t blame anyone else anymore. I can’t point the finger. When I was a kid I was the problem. Then I became the rebel, and it was everyone else’s fault. Now, we’ve gone full circle.

It’s all on me.

Yeah, I may well be doing a characteristically neuro-divergent deep dive on myself, and that, as we know, isn’t always entirely… balanced?

But it’s put me in sharp focus. All my quirks, my idiosyncrasies, my hair trigger,s my rigid, controlling ways…

They’re all… in my face.

And the worst bit about those behaviours? It’s how they affect the ones that I love. That really sucks. Ask them if I have a super-power.

Sometimes I think I left my kids to protect them. From me.

Of course Mai is the one on the receiving end of most of it. I don’t shout, I don’t insult, I’m not physically violent. There’s just… a tension. If I don’t understand something she says, which is often, I’m a boiling volcano of panic and rage, back in the classroom in 1969 under the laser beam gaze of the teacher who’s just asked me to recite my seven times table.

I wish I wasn’t like that.

So does she.

“Rufus isn’t disruptive, he’s divergently curious. His teacher just isn’t resourced for that level of lateral thinking.”

I have been cautious about telling too many people about my ‘condition’. Partly it’s the shame. Not shame that I have Himmler Syndrome. Shame that people might think I’m making excuses. Jumping on a trend. Asking for special attention.

Poor me.

Pendulums always swing. I didn’t need to be told I was thick. I don’t need to be told I’m special.

Like most people, perhaps all people, I just want to belong.

I haven’t posted here for a while because I’ve been writing a new book about this subject. For myself as much as anyone else. Trying to make sense. Because that’s the thing isn’t it? We’ve always had different people, eccentric people, queer people. It’s only recently we got these labels; it’s only of late we got diagnosed with syndromes.

I’m not entirely sure they’re helping.

Anyway – here’s the intro to the book:

The Lakota people of the Great Plains had a name for their sacred clowns.

Those who were Contrary. Backwards. Bewildering to those around them. They did everything differently - rode their horses facing the wrong way, said the opposite of what they meant, laughed at funerals and wept at celebrations.

But the tribe didn’t cast them out.

They gave them a function.

This person served as mirror and teacher - using extreme behaviour to reflect back what others couldn’t see in themselves. They provoked laughter in despair. They provoked fear when people grew complacent. They were the only ones permitted to ask why about things nobody else was allowed to question. Unbound by social constraint, they could violate taboo, critique authority, puncture the sacred - and in doing so, helped define the boundaries that held the tribe together.

Their power came from shame. From having lived as outsiders. From knowing, in their bones, what it cost to be different.

The Lakota called this person the Heyoka.

In the West, we call it autism.

Frank has blood on his hands.

Frank also has blood on his jeans, dark arterial splashes stippling the denim, Jackson Pollock on the suede of his Ugg boots, random, violent. No minor scratch.

The dressing on his left hand already the colour of dried liver. Raw umber.

He says he cut a tendon on a broken glass, Mai translates.

He probably did.

But there’s rumour that Frank and his old school Marseille family are connected.

And I am not a man blessed with moderation of imagination. I’m too visual for this shit.

I see wire. A garrotte pulled too tight, too fast.

Maybe his hand slipped?

Or a silent assassination in a 7^th Arondissement back alley, smell of piss and pastis, the blade catching him as the other man jerks like a busted fire hose.

But… it’s probably ok.

Beside Frank sits his notaire who bears more than a passing likeness to Old Nick in that great old movie, The Devil and Daniel Webster. Across the large desk cluttered with executive toys and computer wires our own official, shaven head Deisel jeans and white polo neck, radiates more of a Bond villain energy, the sort of man who would burn your balls off between espresso shots.

They gabble in high speed legalese. I understand nothing. My imagination fills the silence.

My French school report, summer term 1973:

He has not yet understood the basic fact that this is a foreign language, and he spells it phonetically in English!

5, 6, 7 for instance become SANK, SEAS and SET, and 8 was written WHEAT.

We have a long way to go.

“How long have you been with Mai?”

“Ten years.”

“And you still don’t speak French?”

“Madame - I only speak English when pressed.”

“You’ll have to learn in Marseille…”

We have a long way to go.

A tablet slides across the desk.

I scribble my name on the glass.

And that…

Is that.

No trumpets. No ancestral choir. No surge of destiny.

Just a mild internal wobble, like stepping off a boat that is still moving.

Is this it? Is this what ownership feels like? A stylus and a shrug?

Where is the blood pact? The ritual scar? Surely someone should produce a razor and insist we mingle plasma like mafiosi sealing a truce.

My eyes rest on Frank’s mummified hand.

Enough.

Cheeks are kissed. Backs are patted. The sunlight outside is blinding.

We stagger into it — the newest members of Marseille’s landed gentry.

*

Frank’s hand is a grisly gestalt.

A bloodline swallowing its own tail.

This apartment is paid for with money I did not earn.

I am custodian of a wound.

My maternal grandfather — my hero. Apprenticed at fourteen to a furniture factory. A machine jammed. He reached in to clear it. It took his fingers. Clean.

One hundred pounds compensation.

A century later, compounded with Mai’s savings, it buys us a home. Not London. Not Paris. But here - Marseille - city of beautiful decay and suspicious plumbing.

Am I betraying him by leaving the Chilterns? The beech woods that still feed the factories below?

I could have bought a Tottenham new build.

Plasterboard. Fake veneer. Waking to the gentle percussion of neighbours urinating overhead.

But he raised me to recognise craftsmanship. To honour the hand that shapes wood — even with his furniture maker’s salute, as they called it. So common were the mutilations.

The carved banister in the stairwell of our new home — worn smooth by anonymous palms — feels closer to him than any postcode could.

Wood remembers.

*

Waking the next morning to the faint but undeniable scent of dead rodent, there’s the dawning realisation we may have made a terrible mistake.

Lidl at the bottom of the street confirms it.

It also confirms that I am, in fact, a snob.

Another betrayal of my proudly working-class grandfather.

During the Tottenham riots they looted everything.

Except Lidl.

I hate this clusterfuck of a supermarket. Sanitary towels next to dog food next to chocolate next to noodles. No narrative. No ideology. Just fluorescent entropy.

How can this possibly be German?

Order has left the building.

And here I am — prowling the aisles with my aesthetic principles and inherited injury — offended by discounted tinned tomatoes.

Cupcakes may be the storm troopers of gentrification, but the local bakery offering “your own design printed here” in edible ink suggests that while blood money buys faded grandeur, it still doesn’t buy escape from Poundland.

I imagined I was leaving Tottenham.

It seems I’ve brought it with me — a barge full of plague rats moored to my ankle.

Still — I recognise this ache.

Boarding school flashback. Permanent transit lounge of the soul.

Always relocating. Just settled and already uprooted. Posh gypsy. No fixed address in the nervous system.

I want my mum. My grandparents’ cottage. A cup of tea.

Anything familiar.

How did I end up here?

And then — the real horror.

Maybe I didn’t.

Maybe none of this was planned. Just drift dressed up as intention. Instinct dressed up as free will.

We build walls and call them safety.

But there’s a fine line between secure…

And secure unit.

This feeling isn’t catastrophe. It’s withdrawal — from the fantasy that anything is permanent.

In time it will soften.

And so will I.

These dog-shit streets will become familiar. Possible assailants will become neighbours.

And maybe, one day, this will be home.

We have a long way to go.

The thing is…

America is already great. It really is.

Martin Luther King.

Was American.

So too Patti Smith, Jack Kerouac, bell hooks, Nina Simone, Bob Dylan, Aretha Franklin, Prince, Jimi Hendrix, Toni Morrison, Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez…

The list is long.

America doesn’t need to become great again.

It’s already fucking fantastic.

A dear friend of mine came to our London screening of May Day last week and asked how we can take the spirit of our film out into the wider world.

That’s a toughie.

But for me, it starts with maintaining personal optimism.

Not giving in to the darkness.

It’s true: the world is a scary place if you look at the news.

But there is no such thing as the news. It’s a selection of events designed to hijack your attention. Which means it’s essentially clickbait.

Of course there’s no escape from human suffering. Many people live with far fewer choices than you or me.

But given you’re reading this on Substack, I’m guessing most of your anxieties are existential - and in that context, optimism or pessimism is a choice.

Do we fall prey to glass-half-empty pain-body demons, or stay aligned with the genuine good that is all around us?

My response to my friend at the Q&A was simple: I love Donald Trump.

Not what he does, or who he is - I love what he reveals.

I love The Donald like I love Richard Nixon: flaccid, flabby bad oysters to our sharp-edged grit.

Nixon didn’t cause the 60s, but he sure as shit sharpened them.

Without villains, resistance remains theoretical.

It’s demons like these that make otherwise complacent, comfortable people rise up.

I’ve been deeply moved by the response to the death of Rene Good - an activist mother of three - shot dead on the streets of Minneapolis by ICE, and by the images that followed.

Mostly non-violent protesters out in the cold, the dark, the snow.

People saying to camera, with genuine, palpable emotion: I’ve never done this before in my life. I never went on a march… but this?

This has gone too far.

There’s a lot of bullshit swirling around right now - posturing, egoic, unhinged hubris, fuckery and deceit.

And just as much subservience, cowardice and false flattery, dressed up as diplomacy from our leaders.

Trump got a standing ovation when he walked on stage at Davos yesterday.

I mean… really?

I’m with Gavin Newsom when he calls on European leaders to stop sucking up to Donald Trump and say what they really feel.

The truth, as ever, isn’t in conference halls.

It’s on the streets.

Brave, passionate, honest people refusing to stay quiet in the face of fascism.

But what we’re seeing now is just a wave - nasty, polluted, full of raw sewage, plastic waste and dead fish. Like the 1930s.

A wave that ultimately broke.

It’s a projection of humanity. It lives within us all.

What do you think all those war films, horror films, first-person shooters we consume are about?

Gladiator?

I went to Rome over New Year.

The Colosseum. I mean… wow. Just wow.

And the food - incredible.

The coffee - amazing.

The people - fantastic.

And the history. There’s nowhere else quite like it.

A wonderful vibe for a civilisation built on blood and human suffering.

The older I get, the harder I find it to ignore the mechanics of empire - Roman, British, American alike.

They’re all funded by one of the oldest currencies there is: the trade in humans.

Rome is lovely, if you forget it was built on slavery - people torn from their homelands, worked to death in servitude.

Don’t forget that.

The demons only run amok when we’re asleep.

Unlike many who came before us - and many who still live today - you and I are free.

Or at least we like to think we are. Let’s not dig into that just yet.

For now, maybe it’s enough to appreciate that freedom - and use a little of our extraordinary privilege to make some trouble.

To make some noise.

To not be part of what we’re offered under the guise of solutions.

To be part of the problem.

This is a cautionary tale, about a man.

Called Infinity.

Infinity is someone I would describe as a ‘boil-in-the-bag hippy’. An instant new age warrior, just add water - and a hefty dose of bullshit.

Now it’s not my intention to humiliate or belittle, but - let’s be real:

a) I don’t think his name is really Infinity. I’m guessing that’s not what’s on his birth certificate. Probably Alan or Robert.

b) If you’re going to call yourself Infinity, I feel entitled to take the piss.

Anyway, there I was lounging around one summer at a hippy community I’ve been part of years, when Infinity showed up. Wearing a cape. Clutching a staff.

Which was when I began to… suspect.

Every year there’s a mix of old timers and newcomers who generally come together without any problems. But… there’s always one. And I’m not judging them on their clothes – I’m partial to a bit of tie-dye myself. And it’s not because I’m jealous of their man buns because I’m bald. It’s not because I can’t play djembe.

It’s… just a vibe.

And Infinity - had a vibe. The smell of patchouli and spiritual bypass. And a certain kind of new age superiority.

At lunch he swept up to the table where I was sat, minding my own business, and with a swish of his cape, announced:

My name is Infinity. Who do you serve?

Which… is where he lost me.

My good friend Jake managed to splutter – er, I don’t really serve anyone mate.

I just made my excuses and left.

Heard he got thrown out later that night for trying to sit in with the drummers despite being repeatedly asked to put his fucking djembe down.

But all of this is really just a long preamble to this notion of service.

Where did that one suddenly appear from?

Sorry - I’m not serving anyone, any more than I’m leading anyone, I don’t want to be one up any more than I want to be one down. I want to be an equal, a companion, a fellow traveller. This idea we’re all suddenly supposed to serve someone, well - blame Bob Dylan. Beyond that? It smacks of soft-focus, incense-scented exceptionalism.

This question: who do you serve?

It’s not curiosity - it’s hierarchy.

Because when you tell me you’re in service, what I hear is that you are really important. That what you do, what you offer, that your gift to the world… is terribly important.

And that… gets on my tits.

Because it comes from ego. It’s spiritual narcissism dressed up as an offering.

In the Grail myth, the seeker, the one true knight to whom the Holy chalice is revealed, is the one who asks the correct question:

To whom does the Grail serve?

The traditional answer is God, but that’s not the point. The point is that we – as practitioners of any discipline – ask the question. Who am I really doing this for? Am I in this to really help others or am I doing this for reasons of self-importance, the need to be special, chosen, or superior?

That’s my issue with this notion of service. Turns out, the myths got there first - and asked a better question.

Not that I believe we can or should be entirely self-sacrificing. I definitely do what I do because it’s a healthy way for me to be.

But I’m not trying to be a guru.

I’ve just been studying the Grail long enough to understand that it withdraws from those who seek it for power, certainty, or self-glorification.

But when we ask ourselves, to whom does the Grail serve?

We perform an ongoing ethical audit. Who am I doing this for? Where does my ego sneak in? What would it cost me to be less special?

That’s the difference between declaring service - inflation.

And living in question - humility.

When healing serves only the self, the land remains barren.

Which doesn’t serve anyone.

Standing by the cooker, frying an egg – this already sounds like a Beatles lyric – I had a profound realisation.

I keep telling people about it, but no one seems to grasp the magnitude of this moment. They tend to look at me, as Bill Hicks used to say, like a dog that’s been shown a card trick.

Anyway, standing by the cooker, frying an egg, this realisation, out of nowhere, popped into my head:

I don’t want a social life.

I don’t like them.

Never did.

Right back when my mum would drag me kicking and screaming to some jelly and ice cream clusterfuck when I was five years old.

Can’t like it.

Not even when the hormones started raging and I was confronted with the horror of the school disco, drenched in Old Spice like the very vapours could repel all invaders – oh my, that’s a very pungent scent you’re wearing, what is it?

Pong pour Homme. Now go away, I’m writing angsty poetry.

In my twenties clubbing became a thing.

For my mates.

Jerry man, what’s wrong with you? Come out, it’ll be a laugh.

No. It won’t.

Recently I thought I’d make an effort. I’m grown up now, done a lot of work on myself, I can handle a club right?

Mai was adjudicating at a cool hip-hop event in Paris. She looked surprised, confused even when I said, yeah I’ll come, I’d love to see you do that.

Which was true. In theory.

And as soon as I got to the cramped, dark, sexy location it immediately hit me - I was the only aged, non-French speaking cis white man standing in a deafeningly loud bunker full of incredibly fabulous, confident, hot, talented young people.

This is not my natural habitat.

I started sweating, dry mouth, heart beating, dizzy…

My god you look awful, are you okay?

I have to leave, I’m sorry, don’t worry, I’ll be fine.

Which all came true within moments once I was safely ensconced in a cab driving in the right direction – anywhere but here.

*

So, this is why I’m getting all excited by my fried egg enlightenment experience – for the entirety of my sixty-one years I thought I was wrong. Because everyone else seems to…

Enjoy it.

Oh of course, I’d love to. Be like everyone else. To have that ease, that pleasure in casual social intercourse. Even at shrink school they used to say to me – Jerry, you’re great at all the deep groupwork, but you’re useless in the tea breaks. You hug the walls. You need to learn how to chat.

Well, if we’re going to get literal, a chat was originally the slang term British soldiers in WWI adopted for the parasitic lice that infested them in the trenches. Therefore, to sit around talking as they deloused one another quickly became known as chatting.

Ironically, I could probably do that. Because there is a purpose.

As I explained to the curandero in Peru last year during a consultation where I was describing my social phobia – I just don’t understand the point of socialising?

But with a purpose – I can do it. Give me a book launch, a film screening, a gig, I’m all in. I realised long ago this was one of the reasons I chain smoked dope when I was younger. Not just to get high, but to give me something to do with my hands. To legitimately avoid eye contact.

That was a harder habit to kick than the drugs.

*

Sometimes I can override it. I went to a friend’s for dinner the other night, and as part of the conversation I told my generous, welcoming hosts that I hadn’t wanted to come. That somehow… made it ok.

And that’s the point for me at my age – for better or worse, I can only do human contact where the truth is the contract. Not that people lie or deceive when they go to the pub – it’s just that the contract is different. Or at least the one I perceive.

Don’t get heavy. Don’t get too personal. Talk about football. Keep it light.

Freaks me out.

I need to be in relationships where the implicit contract is we are going to be as unmasked as we possibly can. That feels safe to me. No tricks, no hidden agendas, no seduction. I know the rules.

*

Mark Twain said – if you get to the end of your life and you can count on one hand how many really good friends you have, you’re lucky. If you can count on two hands, you’re a liar.

So here we are.

JOMO.

I’m sixty-one. Probably not going to be the life and soul of the party now. That ship set sail long ago.

I am the walrus.

Got a few more of these in the can to share over the next few weeks. And yes, I know some of you think we should be more prepared, researched, professional even, but the whole point for me is to go in blind so that you hear our initial thoughts as we read the letters. Just like when I’m being a therapist, sometimes I change my mind on reflection later, but - it’s real.

Looking forward to all your thoughts and comments x

Lately, I’ve gotten a bit self-conscious with all this Substack posting.

We all have to be content creators now, don’t we?

I’m bored of having to shine, of being my best self.

Of living my best life.

So, I’ve decided I’m committing to mediocrity

I’m just going to be average, and as we say in the therapy world:

That’s okay.

•

It seems to me we’re living under a new kind of fascism - the tyranny of exceptionalism.

Suddenly everyone has to be extraordinary. Everyone must be grinding, optimising, building a brand.

To be average is treated like failure. To be content is treated like giving up.

The post-Warhol famous for fifteen minutes thing mutated into something darker.

We didn’t get a brief moment in the spotlight - we got a life sentence of performing exceptionalism, of hustling visibility, of being part of the elite or being nothing.

It’s exhausting. And what if we’re enough without being brilliant?

I remember talking to an actor friend of mine who was struggling (he’s an actor), and saying - a hundred years ago, if you had a gig at a local theatre, you were at the top of your game. Before radio, film, TV, Oscars, Baftas - treading the boards in some musty regional music hall was about as good as it got.

Before we created celebrity culture and turned everyone into competitors in a global arena they never asked to enter.

•

We live in the most narcissistic era our world has ever known.

My stepdaughter told me she had her mind blown by an uncle who challenged her belief that she must be exceptional at everything. She couldn’t get her head around it. I’ve teased her for years about being average - because that’s her biggest fear. That’s what we’ve done to an entire generation.

Whereas for me one of my biggest fears is missing out on all the fun because I’ve been busy trying to be good.

The truth is, I’m not that good. My writing is okay - I enjoy it - I’ve written six books that some of my friends have read, but I’m no Dostoevsky. I can strum a few chords, butcher the odd solo, but I’ll never be Hendrix. I haven’t painted or drawn in years.

For some people, I’m a good therapist.

But we don’t HAVE to be special.

•

I was on a podcast years ago and the host asked how I’d like to be remembered. He looked genuinely disappointed when I said:

I won’t be. Not for long.

120 billion people have lived so far. How many do you remember by name?

We’ll all be forgotten sooner or later. Even Shakespeare. And that’s fine. We do our best, and then we die. That’s how it’s supposed to be. All those celebs who got cryogenically frozen ended up as mush at the bottom of the tanks when someone tripped over the power lead.

This might sound bitter - and that’s because I am - my ego still longs for the agent or publisher to recognise my genius, but mostly…

I feel liberated.

When I left school, the careers advisor threw up his hands in despair.

“You’re unemployable,” he said.

It hurt at the time, but it saved me, and the job market a lot of wasted CVs and interviews.

But in the end, the fucker was right.

I’m not an employee.

It’s not my…

Forte.

•

The Zen teacher Shunryu Suzuki was asked the secret to his enlightenment. He replied:

“I genuinely don’t care what happens next.”

That blew my mind.

I’m nowhere near that.

But… I get it.

Seems a better thing to strive for than being exceptional.

Thirty days hath September, April, June and November, all the rest have thirty-one, except for January which has four fucking thousand.

The clocks went back. No one told me.

But I noticed.

Darkness arrived mid-afternoon one Sunday like an uninvited guest. That’s when I knew it was happening.

Winter.

In Mexico they celebrate the Day of the Dead, here we have Halloween, the sugar coated, trans-Atlantic version of Samhain, the ancient Celtic festival that marks the beginning of the end of daylight, as we hunker down to face the long, drawn-out months of decay.

Death, it seems, is all around. Without warning two old friends are gone and then my one and only beloved aunt, all in these last two weeks, the diary suddenly full of cold, grey funerals, long car journeys and no happy endings.

We are indeed, in sniper alley.

*

The world too, as unstable as I can remember, corruption, war, climate change and now, with the appearance in our skies of 3I/ATLAS, perhaps even alien invasions. During unprecedented times like these it’s only natural to look for something safe, solid or secure to cling to as the ground shifts unnervingly beneath our feet.

As a wise person once said to me – there’s a fine line between secure and secure unit, how quickly we can become imprisoned by our compulsive need for predictability.

What if this ‘security’ is what actually creates rather than alleviates much of our anxiety?

What if learning to surf uncertainty is all we can do in a turbulent and choppy sea of change? Let’s face it - we’ve gendered chaos, decided it’s feminine, and therefore, obviously, to be avoided at all costs.

But too much order quickly becomes fascistic, rigid and cruel…

And that’s when I turn to Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī.

*

Sometimes I feel humanity is like a kid who, no matter how many times you tell them not to, sticks their fingers in the lightbulb socket, just to see what will happen, rather than listening to those who worked things out a long, long time ago.

And what strikes me most about Rumi, the 13th-century Persian poet, mystic, and Sufi teacher, is just how on point he is, how his wisdom bridges 800 years and feels as relevant, if not more so, than when it was first written:

“Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment.

Cleverness is mere opinion, bewilderment is intuition.”

Wisdom over intellect? The fuck!?

Rumi - the ultimate proto-punk, so counter-cultural, so the opposite of all we hold dear, what he suggests is out of step with just about… everything.

*

I was in Peru last year, having my ions re-organised, and before I left my dear friend – let’s call her Sandra, for that is her name – gave me a deck of Amazonian Angel Oracle cards.

Now whilst I dabble in tarot from time to time (I completely trust this ancient divination tool when I get a good reading, anything less I dismiss as utter bullshit) I generally avoid anything with the word Angel, but truth be known, I was shitting it when I headed out to the jungle, and so was willing to accept any kind of help or guidance available.

Looking through the deck today, I can’t find the card I pulled. Maybe I imagined it.

But I remember the essence of what it said:

You can gain a lot of knowledge about ayahuasca from books, the internet, from talking to shamans and curanderos.

But if you want wisdom – you’ve got to drink it.

If you’re foolhardy enough to do such a thing, one of the first things you’ll be instructed to do is surrender to the experience. And that’s what Rumi is talking about - letting go of the mind’s need to understand, control, and define everything, and instead allowing yourself to be opened, undone, and transformed by the mystery of existence.

Of course, to do that we need to transform our notion of confusion as a negative thing and instead see bewilderment as a state of wonder, openness and humility.

Here’s where a colon comes in handy.

Be-wildered.

Be wild. Be yourself. Break out of the prison of correctness, righteousness, intellectual superiority, rational analysis, ego-driven certainty.

It’s fun.

Oh, and you know what?

It’s safe.

If I have to be right, I have to fight my corner, defend my opinion, prove my point.

It’s a state of war.

But if I can be wrong, apologise and admit it without descending into bruised pride and shame…

You can’t touch me.

I’m free.

War is over. If you want it…

*

To be, or not to be?

That’s not a question.

Hamlet’s soliloquy is a tragedy of paralysis - a man who can’t act because he can’t reconcile thought and being.

Rumi’s wisdom transforms that paralysis into grace - you don’t need to resolve the conflict; you need to fall into it.

To stop trying to understand and instead experience.

As Osho said – where there’s certainty, there’s no growth.

It’s okay to be unsure. It’s okay to be wrong sometimes.

This is what we mean by vulnerability.

*

There’s a moment in our new film May Day that always brings comments in the post screening Q&As. It’s not a moment when I’m impressive, self-assured or confident.

It’s when I admit I got it wrong, misjudged the situation, was inauthentic.

It never crossed my mind this would impact the audience, to me it was just a moment that happened.

But it’s touching on something… something collective.

There’s a hunger.

Something is happening, and you don’t know what it is, do you?

Bewilderment isn’t confusion - it’s freedom Mr Jones, it’s freedom.

*

MAY DAY is available to buy or rent HERE

Get all the New Age Bullshit you desire HERE

If I’ve learned anything over the years, especially when it comes to creative challenges, it’s that expertise and experience aren’t always what we need to overcome or achieve.

Sometimes ignorance and innocence rule the day.

I had no idea when we were commissioned to make a film about a therapeutic retreat that it would take four years.

I had no idea that it would challenge my relationship to myself, to the world and to Mai to such a degree.

I had no idea how challenging and transformational it would be to just about everyone involved.

I had no idea how much it would hurt. How many tears would be shed. How frustrating it would be.

And I never dared imagine it would become this… beautiful thing.

*

We gave up at least once. It beat us. We walked away, and then, when it was sure that we had let go, it called us back.

It even named itself.

We tried so many names – Floralia, A Million Miles from Kansas, The Twelfth Letter, none of them stuck, and then one day Mai sent me a new cut to review and the caption came up on the screen – May the 1rst, 2021.

The first thing I noticed was the spelling mistake. Mai speaks great English, but when she writes it’s these kinds of little typos I have to look out for. And then it hit me.

I FaceTimed her.

It just told me what it’s called Mai. The film just told me.

I was on the edge of tears. It’s called May Day.

We began filming, intentionally, on May Day. We wanted the wildness of a fertility ceremony. And may day is the international call for help, which neither of us knew until someone pointed it out, derives from the French, m’aidez – help me.

*

And so here it is, a weird and wonderful trip, a psychedelic micro-dose without the comedown, an invitation to become the thirteenth participant in a retreat where twelve strangers’ healing unfolds in real time, without leaving the comfort of your own home.

My supervisor tells me the therapeutic community will hate me for it, and maybe they should. At a screening in Paris last week, an audience member at the Q&A said – you shouldn’t do this.

I agreed. It breaks the rules. To show intimate, trauma healing beyond the therapy room? That’s taboo. That’s wrong. That defiles all notions of confidentiality for Christ’s sake, the very basis of the therapeutic contract.

And yet that’s what we’ve done. And I can confidently speak for the participants who were courageous enough to go in front of the camera and participate in the Q&As when I say that the very act sharing their pain has been part of their healing.

Because that for me, is the real essence of what we call healing - to be witnessed. To be seen.

And when we’ve been abused, to no longer hold the secret. To break that toxic contract.

Fuck it - that’s worth breaking a few rules for. Ruffling a few feathers.

And from the feedback we’re getting, it’s helping viewers too.

That was the vision all along. We had no idea if it would work… but we were ignorant enough to give it a try.

*

I really hope you like it. And if you don’t, that at least it makes you think, question, debate, stay awake at night trying to figure out what it has touched in you. I hope it makes you feel.

Anything.

Massive gratitude to the participants, the helpers, the musicians and composers, the technicians, the secret people, the artists, the therapists, the people who dug deep and contributed financially, everyone who gave us love, enthusiasm, and encouragement throughout.

May Day is now available to buy or rent on demand, click HERE to go to the site.

There will also be an intimate screening and Q&A with myself, Mai and some of the participants at the Art House in Crouch End on January 15, 2026. I’ll post booking details here when they become available.

*

MAY DAY

The Circle is the Shaman.