Every morning, I say to myself: I was not promised this day.
It’s a small sentence, but I say it aloud — and it opens things up to a feeling of gratitude.
It reminds me I’m fortunate. I’m still here.
I’m fortunate because I, like most people, can fall into acting like this day was guaranteed.
It wasn’t. It’s unscripted, entirely alive.
I’m a psychotherapist and a writer. I’ve spent decades being with people at the edge of things —
not just the edge of dying (they’re rare, even though everyone's doing it), but at the outer edge of things like life, being, love, meaning, purpose, their own soul.
That’s part of what led me to write Pilgrims. I was seeking out an edge that frightened and intimidated me. I found it. And I went there.
That, and a dream someone had about me — that I was to write books. The first would be called Pilgrims, and next would come the story of my life.
Pilgrims has just been re-released in a Second Edition - on eBook, Paperback and Hardback. I’ve worked on this edition for several months — adding, regularly changing things nobody else might notice, writing a new Introduction and Afterword.
I’ve never seen it as a book about death. It’s a book about what’s important before you die. Not a self-help book — but maybe a reorienting one.
The next books are on their way. They’re subtitled The Biography of a System. I’m aiming for August 2025 for the first — A Boyhood. These books explore the system that formed me, and the ways it fleeced me of my own nature and biography. They’re a kind of forensic memoir — a look at how we, particularly men, become false to ourselves, and what we might do about that - and a socio/psychological commentary on normalisation and a way back to selfhood.
I don’t intend to post often — perhaps once a month. We’ll see. But when I do, it will be to offer something that might hold a little weight. I wouldn’t want to waste your time or energy. After all, you weren’t promised this day any more than I was.
— Paul
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