Metamorphosis. Transfiguration. The alchemy of the self. This ancient subject has been all but abandoned today to the quacks and swindlers of the world. I'd like to take a stab at doing some justice to the subject, and resurrect and perhaps update some discourses that have largely been neglected.

And so redemptive change, informed by an integration of the relevant sciences and humanities is my theme - but focusing throughout on a particular case study (you're not going to guess of whom).

For once I was lost, was dovetailing to an early death, when suddenly something changed. Something difficult to describe but that in these pages I will attempt to - to put words to the ineffable.

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Many details about this process remain opaque. I aim to clarify this through writing on it (conveniently the ideal time to write is while still in the discovery process, while the mystery is still fresh), and before I grow too old to make much use of it.

To climb the mountain, slough through the despond, or get thrown overboard while on board a ship with a superstitious crew - whatever I need to do to get back to that something resembling redemption. And talk about it.

Or, as the great Poet once said, die trying.

Why?

There's an old saying that the deeper you delve into the personal, the closer you get to the universal.

Will that be the case here? I don't know. But something tells me we're more likely to make it to the promised land if we go together.

Join the crew

There may be others here interested in taking a dilapidated thing barely resembling a life and turn it into something else, something redeemable and worth redeeming. That’s my focus - other folks who have been or are at the fringe but are seeking a meaningful path forward: drunkards, layabouts, artists, vagabonds, ex-cons, and so on.

Or maybe you're a voyeur, or someone interested in folks at the edge or generally the process of change. Who am I to quibble with those who want to read what my quibble produces (no more bad puns, I promise!).

Who?

I'm Thomas Berry, though for kicks I'm using my prison number as my pen name here. I'm a contrarian by nature, a devil's advocate confronted with the challenge to build or find a better hell.

What you get

The best advice I ever read on creative ventures is to provide what you want, on the idea that you are unlikely to be the only one who feels this way. And at least this way you're running with something you know to be true, as opposed to speculating about what other people “really" want.

I'm resistant to laying out precisely what I'll cover across the board (as the guy I worked with once told a customer right before he got fired, “This isn't Wendy's. You don't get it your way”).

One of the troubles with being a contrarian is that I'm often a contrarian against my interests. I don't discriminate and my ability to stifle a bad joke to progress my cause is pretty much non-existent. Such is the case here.

But I can say this: my interests will show up on the page. And my interest in human beings and the process of change has been a stable part of my life since freshman year of high school. For better or worse it's bound up in the fabric of my being.

So this newsletter is essentially written to me or someone (lucky enough to be) like me. It's what I've been looking for - there's nothing like this out there, it's entering a giant void and I hope it pushes the conversation forward.