Follow the Hobo Poet for Unconditional Love.

Tom Delahunt, the hobo poet, is an award-winning academic and an advanced nurse practitioner with years of experience in intensive and emergency care. In 2019 he was awarded Most Innovative Teacher of the Year, by the prestigious Times Higher Education Awards, this was in recognition of his use of poetry to support nursing students dealing with trauma. Tom created the blog Poetic Nursing Heart and he also advocates creating a safe space for neurodiversity in education. He says “poetry fuels my hopes and aspirations for inclusion and a rise in educational wonder.” Tom’s complex dyslexia was diagnosed as an adult and he attributes his survival at school to his autistic tendencies navigating what he describes as the ‘mechanistic and impersonal system that is school.’ We talk about, trauma, addiction, neuro-diversity, philosophies of serenity and pessimism and ultimately love. His new children’s book, The Wandering Lamb, is about unconditional love and acceptance. And then, there's The Butterfly Farmer... Ready to fly?

Series Audio Editor - Courtesy of Joey Quan.

Series Music - Courtesy of Barry J. Gibb

Closed Captions are added to all interviews in this series. Read only, text versions of every interview can also be found here: https://www.canartsaveus.com

Discover Tom Delahunt here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-delahunt-71a1559a/

 

Episode Transcript

(00:03):
Welcome to this podcast seriesasking the question Can art save
us? I'm starting the firstnational and international
conversation about courage andcuriosity. What do these
qualities really mean? And whydoes it make a big difference to
our mental, societal anddemocratic health? I talk to
award winning and diverseartists across the arts to

(00:24):
explore these qualities in theirlives and work, both to inspire
and for us all to learn. I'mexploring why we need these
qualities to help change theglobal epidemic of mental
illness, loneliness,polarization of our communities,
and even global conflicts. Ifthe arts cultivate courage and
curiosity, I'm asking thequestion, Can art save us? And

(00:50):
my guest today is Tom Delahunt,who calls himself a hobo poet.
He's also an award winningacademic who is clinically
active as an advanced nursepractitioner working in
intensive and emergency care. In2019, he was awarded most
innovative Teacher of the Yearby the prestigious Times Higher
Education Awards, and this wasin recognition of his use of

(01:12):
poetry to support nursingstudents dealing with trauma.
Tom created the blog, poeticnursing heart, and he also
advocates creating a safe spacefor neurodiversity in education.
He says "poetry fuels my hopesand aspirations for inclusion
and a rise in educationalwonder." Tom's complex dyslexia

(01:34):
was diagnosed as an adult, andHe attributes his survival at
school, to his autistictendencies, navigating what he
describes as the mechanistic andimpersonal system that is
school. His gift was and iswords, and his new children's
book, The Wandering Lamb, isabout unconditional love, and

(01:54):
the search for acceptance.Hello, Tom, and welcome.
Thank you, that was very nice.
Oh, that's good. Well, it's verynice of you to be here. And it's
been really interesting to lookat your work. So thank you,
again, for making the timetoday.
No problem at all.
So it really seems to me Tom,when I when I was researching

(02:16):
everything that you do, is thatyou are bringing humanity into
the classroom. And it's not justthrough the principle of
inclusion, but it's in yourspecific approaches. And it was
interesting, because I read yousay, which I'll quote, "Since I
can remember, I have alwaysfound spaces and people

(02:37):
difficult to navigate. Theseproblematic spaces were not
simply structural or physical,but also philosophical, musical,
and poetic." And I was curious asto how these spaces manifest as
problematic and by whosedefinition?
It's like, like the sort of,when, when you talk, I get a

(03:02):
visual representation of what Ifeel the words are telling me.
And so when you were talking, Ihad the visual kind of image of
when things change around you.Now there is there are a number
of films that have played onthis. Dr. Strange in the Marvel
Connect series played on thisidea, of suddenly walls and
things moving sounds notnecessarily resonating. And when

(03:27):
you talk to children, likemyself and others who find
spaces and people challenging,it's usually elemental. And so
it's very difficult sometimes tobe able to say, what is it that
causes that discomfort? But Iwould, I would suggest now,
having done a lot more researchinto the kind of lateralization

(03:47):
of the mind. It's that we spendtoo long in the finite focus
and we don't spend long enoughin play.
Yes, and would you say this iswhat is particularly
constraining, particularly atschool age, with rigid school
curriculums, is play somethingthat is almost or lack of play,

(04:12):
I should say, is it somethingthat's almost cruel,
particularly to a mind that'sdifferent?
So if you want, if you want toallow for the creation of new
thinking, you know, when we talkabout and we spoke recently
about sort of spaces ofconstruction, where you
construct something, I'm doingthat yet again, with my PhD,

(04:35):
I'm constructing a space inwhich to be able to either sort
of delve or to or to meditate orto be involved or to dissipate.
So there's like, when when wetalk about play, unfortunately,
even play has become structured,you know, children are allowed
to go outside for a certainamount of time. But often that

(04:57):
play is also sort of regimented,where as if you, as an adult, say
to a child, you know, take me onan adventure. That's a very
different type of play. And whatyou have to do is you have to
start to connect to the sorts ofthe right hemispheric kind of
instinctive and excited, andsort of all of those things that

(05:19):
we forget to do, because we feeltoo confined often by maybe
feeling silly. Yeah.
Yeah. And play is surelycritical in terms of exercising
curiosity, it's a healthy way oflearning and discovering and

(05:41):
what's lovely in your book, TheWandering Lamb, the story
states, "I was always a curiouslamb." Is that, is that something
that you're particularlyconcerned about? That there is a
lack of healthy curiosity beingcultivated in the education
system?

(06:01):
Yeah, I think so. And theinteresting thing is that, you
know, it's annoyed people oftenwho've gone through the process
of managing me academically ormanaging me, in general is that
I, I stumbled into spaces, andthen I construct what I believe
is a truth within that space. Sothe book in a way is like a,
it's like a legacy of an ethos,in a way, it's something that I

(06:24):
want to try to achieve, whichis, since it's been released,
I've had a number of peoplereferring to an individual or
someone within the school whovery much sort of links to this
idea of wandering. And I thinkthat the problem that we have is
we is we don't do it enough. Andwhen we do, we realize how

(06:45):
wonderful it is, you know, ifyou have a good friend, and you
go for a walk, and you don'thave a restraint on time,
suddenly, everything becomesapparent, you know, if you allow
yourself to look at colors, Iwent walking with my wife the
other day, and the light waslow, and there was a sea of
cobwebs, and the cobwebs were sodense, it was across an entire

(07:06):
field. And I'd never seen itbefore. And a couple were
walking the other way. And Ihappen to say to them, Look at
the sea of cobwebs, and theywere in the process of just
walking past the field, theywouldn't have known that it was
there. And it was one of thoseonce in a you know, in a
lifetime opportunitiespotentially to see something
that was truly transcendentallybeautiful, you know, really,

(07:30):
genuinely stunning. And I thinkthat's part of our problem is
that we've almost closed that Isociety in general. And I'm not
happy to have that done anymore. And I think as I've become
closer and closer to Dr.Delahunt, I think eventually
he's going to be quiteproblematic, because he's going
to ask for things to change.

(07:52):
Yeah, because it's interestingthat obviously, you won a very
prestigious award, in terms ofrecognizing your teaching and
your innovation in teaching, butprofessionally, that must be
very challenging, becausebecause you embrace being

(08:15):
different and thinkingdifferently. You can be labeled
as being left field, which Iwonder if you find that quite
tedious, actually?
I think I think I've learnedbecause, you know, the Masters,
the dyslexia was picked upduring the Masters which
attained a distinction. Butlike, when I said to you, I had

(08:38):
to construct a narrative versionand an academic version in order
for the individuals tounderstand the the sort of
philosophy the non dualistphilosophy and some of the
philosophies, philosophicalpositions that I was taking
within the academic text,because what we find or what I
found is the monastic and thephilosophical, and the

(09:00):
educational, they're all sort ofsiloed, but I can't see them
like that. And hence, the reasonartifact is being constructed.
Because it's a way of me beingleft field and being unusual,
but I can do it in a room whereit's just me and the paintings
and the art and the poetry. AndI find themes that exist within

(09:25):
that space, etc. And that'squite, that's quite important to
me, but the university havereally gathered a sort of
support mechanism or, or peoplehave come to support me as an
individual. And that then isthen being breathed into the
university rather thannecessarily the structure
itself. And I think that's oftenhow creatives will feel is that

(09:49):
they will feel sort of existentwithin an ecosystem but
potentially, like I said, in oneof the blogs, "Mudskipper on
the Back of the Black Dog," youknow, it, it's it's an
interesting position definitely.
When you talk about visualrepresentation of words in your

(10:10):
mind, I'm just wondering if youcould almost describe that. And
I'm wondering whether that'spart of what you call "the chaos
of my mind."
So, I've always done it since Iwas very young. And the only
time I've seen it visuallyrepresented, and this is in no
way me comparing myself to thisthinker, they did a documentary

(10:35):
on the evolution of Einstein'sthinking. And what what he would
do is in these classes, he wouldhave visual representations of
mathematical theories, so hewould physically see them
manifest. And for me, poetry islike a principial knowledge, this
is what I'm trying to sort ofassert in my doctorate is that

(10:57):
there are there are very, verykind of, there are a multitude
of spaces, transcendentalspaces, spiritual spaces,
philosophical spaces, andthere's a lot more hard
scientists coming around thisfrom the awakened brain to pan
psychism. And I've got all ofthose kinds of references to
lend upon people like brand andothers that have become popular

(11:18):
in the public eye, it's aboutsort of looking at alternatives
and allowing those alternativesto breathe. And I think that's,
that's kind of centrallyimportant, actually.
Tom, picking up on what you werejust saying about visual
representation, I wasinterested in whether you
experienced that as the chaosyou describe in your mind. And

(11:44):
is it also what creates yourpoetic expression as a creative
and as a teacher?
Yeah, and that's, that's themost important thing, because I
think it's always reallyimportant and like my, you know,
supervisors say, kind of draw itback to the kind of the
intention of the work. And forme, it's about the fact that I
spent so many years within atraumatic experience, you know,

(12:07):
working as a nurse in A&E acrossin New Zealand, and, and here,
and I've still got very closeconnections to, to my place of
work, but it's the truth that'sborn from trauma. And the truth
is born from sort of thedarkness, as Nietzsche suggests,
you know, you know, don't becomethe monster, but stare into the
void, because the void willstare back at you. And so I kind

(12:27):
of, it's as if I had a languagethat I wasn't allowed to access,
because I was not clever enough,or I was to special needs, or I
was segregated. And thensuddenly, in my later life, I've
played Kerplunk. I use that as oneof my references. And I've
pulled away all of these thingsthat people have told me that I
am. And then I've read, I'verefashioned that with values of

(12:50):
my own, and the most centralpillar, or value is one of love.
And that's the book and that'smy work is unconditional love,
like showing a nurse, that hertrauma and her identity is
Central is a way of breedingcompassion that can be offered.
And so everything that I do interms of poetry, in terms of

(13:10):
art, in terms of the play, thatI'm really excited, and very
much hoping that you can attendis all part of this, this sort
of chaos that Inavigate. sometimes painfully,
actually, sometimes it is, andI've got a current assessment
going through my GP practice foradult ADHD, because it's clear

(13:32):
that I have a number of thosecharacteristics. And I think
that's where a lot of, you know,the issues that you kind of come
up against later on are sort ofmore aid, you're more you're
more able to navigate them as anadult, but they still cause the
same stigma and pain a childwould feel.
Yeah. So it seems remarkable,doesn't it that perhaps trauma

(13:59):
in terms of how that's expressedhow it's explored how it's
understood as part of yourtraining as a nurse or as a
health practitioner, is maybenot as foregrounded as it should
be?
No, definitely not, you know,and recently reading Gabor Maté's

(14:19):
work on the Myth of Normal andanother another piece of work by
Oprah and a seminal thinker aswell called, What what's happened
to you? There is so much more tounderstand about the way that
we, we craft organic systems andservices around those people

(14:41):
that are vulnerable. And I thinkthat there's a lot to be done
and I hope to be at theforefront of that in terms of
trauma identification, and thenhelping and potentially, I would
love to have my own independentsorts of practice when nurses
can come specifically to me totalk through that traumatic
process and find a creative wayof manifesting something

(15:04):
positive because that's theultimate aim is to find that
sort of position of love thatagape, that you have internally
that you can rely on.
Yeah, and that was just, I mean,it just would be such a critical
service wouldn't it and acritical exchange. And when I
think about your blog, that youcreated the Poetic Nursing

(15:26):
Heart, I was interested in howmuch that helped you in terms of
personal healing from from yearsof, of working on the frontline
in trauma, also developing yourown confidence as a researcher
with with these existinginterests in what you're doing.

(15:47):
It's been, it's been, like,that's part of the kind of the
passion project, I guess thething that likes it, or the
catalyst, it's like thepotassium in the water, what
what I did with the art, so Idid a, I told you about the kind
of the piece of art that I did,which was a living embodiment of
my, my assessment, but reworked,so I took the dyslexia

(16:09):
assessment, and I cut it up, andI rebuilt it into paper, and
then I had that paperconstructed with others, so that
it had an identity and a valuethat, that I could embody. But
something happened in thatprocess of me, kind of, I call
it deconstructing andreconstructing through it
through a media of love, youknow, through media of something

(16:29):
that you value for others aswell. And it's been exceptional
in the Poetic Nursing Heart, ifyou look, it's just a
longitudinal, it's like the redthread in the Butterfly Farmer.
You know, it's the Buddhistcreative consciousness, it's
like, you know, you follow it.And what you naturally then do
is you is you go through aprocess of becoming, yeah.

(16:54):
So, if you, if you imagine thecontext now, of nurses, the NHS
having to strike after such asignificant, unprecedented time
with the COVID pandemic ofheightened trauma, yeah. If you

(17:15):
thought the government readpoems that came directly from
those nurses, what kind ofconversation do you think would
exist today, as they have toeven now battle for fair pay?
I think there would still be apreventive ignorance,
essentially, because I thinkthat the problem with that whole

(17:35):
process is that you you have tohave two people that are
receptive and meeting at thesame point, you know, when we
met, we met in a position ofunderstanding of openness of
almost like, rhyming, and I'vegot a really good friend, a
Congolese national called Alexand who's doing his PhD on
his life stories of trauma. Andhe quite beautifully came and

(18:00):
captured everything that I wasdoing in the art gallery and
spoke to me and in that way ofit being a rhyme that you sing
to one another. Andunfortunately, I think until
there's a sense that withincentral government, they're not
going to be just sat around.nepotistic, nepotistic,
materialism, and there's goingto be a movement towards an

(18:21):
organic voice of change, then,it won't matter what poems you
write, because some of mine arequite vitriolic. They are me
talking about my frustrationsand nurses should not have to
strike that that's that's thekicker, we should be in a
position where we are recognizedand valued. And when I was in
New Zealand, that happened, theNew Zealand government looked at

(18:44):
all of the professionalidentifiers and they realized
that nurses weren't valued atthe same point. And they just
said, we're really sorryand they back paid
them a significant sum of moneyso that they understood that
they were valued as part of acommunity.
Yeah, and it's also finding alot of courage, isn't it?

(19:05):
Whether you're striking whetheryou're speaking up? You know,
whether you're adopting avitriolic voice, I wondered
whether your courage almostcomes from the experience of
feeling isolated andmisunderstood. In your early
years at school or maybe all theway through school. Did it

(19:26):
almost instill a courage in youto be who you are anyway?
I think that's where the hobopoet comes from, you know, I've
been through two rounds ofsolution focused therapy over
the years just to kind ofnarratively explore that with
two wonderful therapists thatwe've ended up having a really
beautiful and texturedconversation around, you know,

(19:48):
why things are the way they are.And the reality of that is that
I often search for home, youknow, I have this intent to try
to find something that feelsright and that exists. I do the
same with the butterfly, youknow, with the with the
Wandering Lamb and with theButterfly Farmer which is coming
next. And the Butterfly Farmeris a poem that I'll recite at

(20:10):
some point for you, which isreally important. And this is
the thing Paula, is I get to thepoint where I realized that the
principial, so it's notnecessarily about something
that's born within, it's almostabout something that is
fashioned in a larger sphere.And Jung talks about this
regularly in his, in his bookaround the idea of the universal

(20:34):
consciousness and I think thatpeople are becoming more
conscious, you know, you've gotvery important people, you know,
you only need to read books,like Lemn Sissay's book on, you
know, My Name is Why. You read,you know, you read multitudes of
books, you know, the MotorcycleDiaries around Che Guevara's
work, you know, they're endless.And the way that I read is I

(20:55):
associate that's the nature ofthe dyslexic mind, is I make
these associations with Brant'swork and Guevara's work, and
Paulo Freire and Kierkegaardand I constantly do it. And I
get so excited with that. And Ithink that that's really the
kind of conversation that's kindof going to move us forward is
essentially, Paula, art can saveus, it's about the audience that

(21:20):
is there and willing to have aconversation with us around
that.
Yeah. And would you say that'sbecause art is the door opener?
I've got this piece of art nowthat that I'll bring you into if
you feel that you want to comeand see artifacts, because
artifact is my way of blending,kind of every tapestry I can do

(21:43):
together. And I think that artneeds to be a modernist point of
view. It needs to be anexperiential, it needs to be all
of these different points ofviews. And I think when you get
to know those stories, suddenly,what happens is that like you
say, the door, you've got you'vegot a glimpse like Brunton talks
about a glimpse, and they theyonly open for a finite period of

(22:08):
time, because what then comesnext is the ego look, oh, how
clever am I, I've got a glimpse,and it closes again. So I think
we need to create spaces ofsafety. And I think that's what
the Butterfly Farmer isdefinitively talking about. And
I think it's probably going toend up being my greatest work
really, because, you know, wenever know but it it came at a

(22:30):
time where I realized that Ineeded to blow a kiss back to
society because otherwise I wasdestructive. I was moving to a
point of self destruction, butalso sort of social destruction
and manipulation and theButterfly Farmer is the demise
of that.
This would be a good time foryou to recite the poem if you're

(22:53):
if you're happy to because thenI'd like to continue talking
about the Butterfly Farmer andalso some of your references in
philosophy.
Yeah, I'd love to Okay, so thisis the this is the Butterfly
Farmer. And it's up in the youknow, if people want a day trip,
it's up in the Marina Holmesbuilding and we sat under the
shade of it, which was a reallyspecial time I have to say. So

(23:17):
it goes, "Looking up through thetrees tending to the chrysalis
as the jewel of possibility eachthought a new butterfly, there
is sat in his meadow under thetalking tree, opening a small
ornate box the hinges creakingeach chrysalis splits and the
new form pushes into the newworld, first to emerge is

(23:37):
awareness, then existence,followed by consciousness,
becoming when ink left anddrying as the muscle and sinew
is stretched out in preparation.The farmer is simply there,
looking on. Agape love andpeace watching as each jewel
emerges and catches the warmingmorning sun the meadow fills

(23:59):
with sweet heat and summerpossibility. Organic, pure, real
and owned the skies above thefarmer fill with the soft sound
of the butterfly wing. He fallsback resting against the
assurance of the talking tree,knowing it's done, lungs full
and heart happy. This is what healways wanted a space of safety

(24:22):
for the fragile, beautifulbutterflies."
Thank you for reading that. Andyes, I would recommend anybody
that wants to go to CanterburyChrist Church, college
Canterbury in Kent, to see thisdisplayed on the wall is well
worth it just just for theimpact, almost the impact of

(24:45):
that poem interrupting people'sday. It's not something that you
simply need to just stroll past.It's also a way of pausing and I
wondered whether from that pointof view, would you say poems are
almost like an intervention inour ritualistic thinking they

(25:07):
help put a halt to the habitualmind. It's almost if you were
walking past this poem on thewall at the university, it's a
way of literally stopping you inyour tracks and putting space
into your mind to thinkdifferently.
Yeah, and the more I've read ofIan McGilchrist and others, the
more I've come to therealization and amazing

(25:27):
thinkers, Gabor Maté , hisrecent book on the Myth of
Normal, I have to say is absolutelygroundbreaking, it's
astoundingly beautiful, becausewhat it does, is it does what
I've always known, and I've sortof said which is that the trauma
that you experience as a childin a classroom is the same as
the trauma sometimes that youexperience in the home setting

(25:48):
then becomes the same traumathat you experience in the
higher education setting, andthen the employment and then
within love. And that's what theTable of Consciousness is about.
It's about the evolution of thatlove into a marital relationship
and how that that feels, soabsolutely, poetry essentially
is about the space between thewords. And so when I read that

(26:10):
there's a bit where I like I go,I go to places so there's like,
you know, the jewel is real. Youknow, I own the jewel and
creaking hinges is something ofan age, you know, this is this
is a big piece of poetry thattalks about the talking tree
because the Jungian tree ofconsciousness is a massive thing

(26:32):
for me, it helped me to suddenlysee that he was speaking of
something organic, and I feelthat when I go walking, when I
see a bird, you know, when I seea dewdrop, I've put tweet
sometimes out there that hassaid, I've seen creation within
the drop of dew, people think thatthat's just poetic license it
certainly isn't. You know, I'vehad these moments of awakening

(26:55):
that you cannot then put tosleep because they are woken for
generationally. They werethey're woken within you. And I
said to someone, it's like asingle note that passes through
you but rests out into theinfinitum.
Yeah, and the Butterfly Farmerhas such lovely emphasis on the

(27:16):
idea of emergence intoawareness, existence,
consciousness and becoming asyou as you say, in the poem. And
I know that your philosophicalinterests, draw on Paul Brunton,
the spiritual philosopher,listeners may not know, wrote

(27:37):
the Quest of the Overself, theclassic work on how to achieve
serenity of mind. And I also sawthat you've referenced liking
Arthur Schopenhauer. And Iunderstand his philosophical
conclusion, if you like, isactually one of pessimism and
the struggle of being bound tosuffer and without an ultimate

(28:04):
purpose. And when I looked atthese two philosophies, with
your work in mind, I wonderedwhere you sit between that idea
of having serenity of mind, buthaving pessimistic pointlessness
at the same time?
Paula, you're such a joy, Itell you're such a joy to talk

(28:25):
to, right. Because people don'task those, you're waiting for
people to ask those questions,because it's like an internal
thing, you know, like, now, if Iwas to take you to Artefact, I
could, I could show you thephysical mind map of where,
where they sit now, you know,Schopenhauer, I put him in a

(28:48):
group of others like Kierkegaardwho are hunched over the idea of
pessimism and Camus, who talksabout, you know, the taste of
coffee and the taste ofmortality, you know, you have to
have both you have to have theYin the Yang, the movement and
that's why although it's achildren's book, that the you
know, the Wandering Lamb is, isvery much a philosophical book

(29:10):
about an adult coming to knowhow to uncondition the love
through the demise ofthemselves. So the demise of
self and the formation of thenew true self realized is
essentially important, Bruntonyou know, talks about the over
the overself he talks about thisoverself right, but the reality

(29:30):
of that was one that I foundwhen walking with my child now,
I've spoken to a number ofpeople and children are they are
a point of divinity at times,and this this little boy Joel,
who's my heart and my soul,beautifully, emotionally
intelligent, was on my back andI was carrying him in a carry
case and it was just, I wasfrustrated with the world. I was

(29:52):
frustrated. I was tired. Youknow, I was a nurse. We were
doing shifts together. Sarah andI were passing at night,
sustaining night timetraumas where people were
passing away in A&E. continuallymanaging that space for others.
And I walked with him. Andslowly, I realized that he was
calling out to see things. So Iwas passing him, like daisy

(30:15):
heads and I was passing himleaves. And I could hear his
joy. Like it was an unbridledjoy. It was like, wow, like, you
know, and it was like, and I wasfrustrated. And I was thinking
to myself, Why am I frustrated,and then it became clear to me
that he had a stronger affinitywith the world around him than I

(30:35):
did, you know, and he was three,and he then passed the flower
back to me. And in passing itback to me, I looked at it for
the first time, and I'm tellingyou, within that flower, I saw
all I needed to see. And I knowthat that's difficult for people
to understand, but the Sunriseof Wonder, and there are
multiple other books and textsthat allow you to understand

(30:58):
that I'm hoping to allow nursesto become at a point of kind of
compassion to others, throughthe demise of their own trauma,
and then the understanding ofwhere that love and compassion
is bound. And I think thatthat's not just nurses, that
medical professionals, that'sparents, that's everyone,
because the response I've hadfrom the Wandering Lamb has been

(31:21):
one of absolute warmth andgratitude, you know, it, it
resonates with people. And Ithink that that's more important
than any riches because I'm nota materialist. I know I'm
privileged. I know I'm in thatposition, for a number of
reasons. But I'm also veryshadowed, and I've got 20 years
of sobriety, and addictionunderstanding, underneath the

(31:44):
darkness is something of light.And that's what Nietzsche and
others say. And, you know, to bethe one in the gutter, looking
up at the stars is okay. AndI've written multiple poems, one
of them's called, Only the Lostare Free, and it talks about come
down here and stare at the starsjust lay in the pit with me. You

(32:05):
know, Paula, you, you're soimportant, and art is so
important. And, you know, ourfriendship now is so bound by
that central ethos of knowingthat we need to make a change.
And I know that you've ignitedmy happiness, because I'm
tilting my head to the right,which is an indication that I'm
very, very happy.
This is such a lovely, lovely,lovely thing to hear. And, and

(32:30):
just to let the listeners know,I had the good fortune to meet
you in person prior to thispodcast. And hence, you were able
to show me the lovely ButterflyFarmer on the wall and so on.
But it's lovely, isn't it thatexchange like this can create
happiness, because this is anexample, if you like of art in

(32:52):
action, isn't it? It's becausewe have that shared interest,
that we're therefore having thisthis dialogue. And it is indeed
the purpose of the podcasts toencourage openness, curiosity,
dialogue, and a form of courage,being brave enough to discover
something that's new, maybelisten to poems you've never

(33:13):
listened to before. And, and allof this Tom really does take me
back yet again, to when you werea little boy at school, because
it's quite hard to imagine howyou negotiated or came up with

(33:34):
coping strategies when I imagineyou felt very misunderstood that
you were existing in a veryconstrained model of what
teaching was and and is I knowteachers are frustrated today
with the curriculum model thatthey have to drag along, to be

(33:56):
honest. And this really pointsme to your poem, The Boy that
Stares out Windows, I'm not sureif that's something you could
talk about a bit more because itreally brings home the
frustration for a child whoisn't matching expected learning

(34:17):
outcomes, but also isn't beinginvited to learn in a way that
they can flourish.
Yeah, yeah, so, Idon't know if I've got that poem
with me today. But essentiallywhat what it what it talks about
is exactly that is that so Isuddenly became aware and again,

(34:37):
this is something that I think,you know, like you're right,
that people are frustrated andyou know, educators across the
globe are frustrated and PauloFreire talked about it within
the pedagogy of, of, you know,of oppression, and then the
pedagogy of hope. And I wouldlike to think that there's, you
know, there's a transcendentalpedagogy or there's a you know,
there's an element there that Ibecame suddenly conscious, Husserl

(35:00):
who was who saw, you know,his work looking at the idea of
how we form knowledge. And as achild, I would, I still
you know, I tilt my headand I've got all of these little
kind of quirks. And I tend tosometimes look over people or
I'll look off to the side, Idon't give brilliant eye
contact, where I'm, I'm creatingan association. So whatever

(35:25):
they're saying to me, maybe I'llsee part of what they're saying
in the movement of some bambooor, like, it sounds very sort of
hippie if you want, but but it'sa transcendental phenomenology.
It's not something that's kindof just made up. And it was a
big part of my Masters. Youknow, me saying that, that a

(35:46):
language of oppression and anintent to create a tolerance of
stress was something that wasbeing bound by NHS organisations
as mindfulness and resilience.So, you know, I'm, I'm someone
who looks at things differently.And as a child, I became very
aware quite quickly, because Ididn't want to be difficult. I

(36:07):
didn't want to be naughty. Sowhat I learned to do is to be
complicit. And what happenedreally was I died inside for
years educationally and didn'tattain brilliantly, I learned to
do what I needed to do. But itwas never done with any sense of
joy. It was just a replicationwithout mistake. And that's what

(36:27):
I say to my boys now is thesystem will expect that from
you, so offer that back to them.But when you come home, the
education system stops, you arethen within a space of love. And
we can talk about the passionsthat you have. And we will talk
about Dweck Growth Mindset, andwe'll work specifically to break
the fixed mindset that may bemaking you feel sad. I've seen

(36:51):
it in action. I did it with mychild before he went into
secondary school, and hisemotional intellect. And his
ability to navigate allows themovement to make sense of the
work. So he's happy, but it'scomplex. And so I don't want
anyone listening to thispodcast, I feel that I'm
suggesting that there's a sortof a simple solution. There
certainly isn't. But art,definitely and poetry

(37:13):
definitely offers us a point ofconversation. And I think that
those conversations, as the poemsays, the spaces need to be
created in order to have thatconversation of trust.
Yeah, absolutely. And of course,the Wandering Lamb is a lovely
poetic expression of everythingyou're saying. And isn't it
lovely to think that you werethat little boy, struggling,

(37:39):
bewildered, disheartened, whonow goes into schools to read
the Wandering Lamb to try andopen these new doors? And have
you had any lovely surpriseseven Tom, the way children have
responded, or even the teachersthemselves? I mean, I imagine,
in the simplest way, it must bequite enlightening in that it

(38:03):
must be a relief for somechildren to recognize that
story.
Yeah, I think it needs to be. SoI've got you know, fortunately,
you're asking me at the righttime, I've got sort of seven,
eight schools now asking me tokind of come in. And I think
what what I'm going to try anddo is we're going to, I don't
want it to be a materialiststep. It's not about sort of

(38:23):
selling books, the whole pointof the the ethos is that we
start a conversation. So I'mtrying to build it around me
being invited in to do a smallpoetry workshop, where we use
words creatively and with joy.And then I tell them about how
I'm different. And I thinkdifferently, and that can be
difficult. But there's points ofoppression or narrative within

(38:45):
this children's book that Ithink I've had amazing
responses, the reviews have beenbeautiful, the children respond
beautifully to when it's read tothem, the younger ones,
replicate it with a sense oflove, the older ones start to
understand about individuality,because that's where their minds
are, and the and the educatorsand the parents just enjoy the

(39:05):
sense of the story being onethat results within a position
of unconditional love. Sothere's something in there, but
there's a very, very deep kindof seated, philosophical,
philosophical narrative in thereas well around the lamb becoming
stuck the lamb calling for help,and, you know, and the
oppression of alignment as wellin one of the images. So there's

(39:28):
an opportunity, I hope to do it,not only just in schools, but
actually to think about takingit into a larger kind of
conference environment and say,look, this is a child's image,
but what I'm actually saying is,and then lay on the, you know,
the realities of Freire's workand the consistent need to have
conversations, difficultconversations that need to be

(39:50):
had around education and the waythat we move that forward and my
supervisor Jonathan Barnes ishugely influential and he's
someone I'm going to work veryclose with who
believes very much in thatcreative pedagogical idea of
forming a freer space ofthinking and creating knowledge
and a place of safety and lovefor children.

(40:11):
In terms of what you're saying, you know, your intention
is so beautiful, isn't it simplyto be inclusive to not exclude
anybody who happens to thinkdifferently, respond
differently. You know, we talkabout neurodiversity but yet,

(40:33):
we seem such a long way off fromfully embracing what that means
and how to respond to that,whether it's in the classroom or
in the, or in the workplace orin life in general, we seem to
be such a long way from that. Interms of education do you think
it's institutional fear thatthere's just such rigidity to

(40:55):
any kind of change even whenit's positive?
Yeah, I think, you know, havingworked in two quite large
institutions, the NHS and thenwithin the education system, I
definitely think that there's,there's definitely something of
that kind of fear of change thekind of the lagarde and the
desire to, to, you know, theculture to eat strategy for

(41:16):
breakfast, the reality is, youjust start very small, you know,
that would be really key to me,is start with a very small
organic process, like the PoeticNursing Heart, like the
Wandering Lamb, and build itjust ever so slightly from those
kind of positions, and thenshare those values. I think as
long as we're sharing values, wecan find a way of mediating it.

(41:39):
And I have a friend in theeducation system, who knows it
well enough to say, actually,there's a gap within this year
group at this point wherethey're no longer being
assessed. So I think there areplaces that we can start making
genuine systemic change andintroduction of, you know, a
reintroduction of arts and, andthinking into a place maybe

(42:00):
that's been a little bit devoidof that for some time.
Yes, because I worry that in acontext now, where mental health
has much more prominence, butsadly, in terms of soaring
statistics on people strugglingwith mental health, and I worry

(42:23):
that when we look at, forexample, these constraints in
education, or perhaps the lackof access into arts as a way of
encouraging openness andcultivating an open and happier
mind, that curiosity is soconstrained. And it's even

(42:46):
further narrowed by socialmedia, by algorithms making
choices for us, that I reallyworry that all of this is such a
huge act of harm. That it's thatit's not even understood as
harmful when it's normalized asOh, it's social media. Oh,

(43:09):
that's the school curriculum.That's the norm. That's how we
do things.
I think one of my favoritescenes in The Matrix is when Neo
is offered the red or the bluepill. And I think that the
reality would probably be that,you know, over the next few, you
know, however long over over thenext few years, it's going to be

(43:31):
very important that people wakeup to the options of making a
choice that dictatesopportunities for others. And I
think that there are, you know,there are more and more spaces
now, where that's going tobecome, I think, a possibility.
And I just think that it's justabout having that, that that

(43:52):
sort of creative confidence. AndI wasn't asked whether or not I
wanted to do you know, this nextpiece of artwork, I just knew
that it was important for me,therapeutically, I needed a
space to just spread everythingout. So I could look at it. And
it has become something biggerthan that something that the
students now want to see. So itI think it's really important

(44:12):
that they see someone doingthings just differently, and
I'll go into schools, and I willhave those conversations. And
I'm just, I think the resiliencethat was bound by you know,
being marginalized as as a youthwith different ways of thinking.
And then the male adaption thatcomes, you know, I think there's
a big issue with neuro diversityand criminality. You know, I

(44:35):
know for a fact that the factthat I was oppressed so much,
and I was positioned in a waywhere I felt like I couldn't
understand the system that theway that you close those fears
off is that you utilizesubstances to help cater for
that. And Brant is very good atkind of introducing that in a
way that you can understand. AndI think that we're going to move

(44:56):
through that point, and I thinkit's people like myself who've
lived through, do thatfortunately. And, you know,
continue to live within thatposition as the addict each day,
I think it's going to besomething really important
moving forward that, that thereare some that are out there to
say, well, actually, no, I don'twant to, I don't want to be part
of that structure, I'm going tochoose not to, and I've got my

(45:18):
validity. And I think that themore words I get, and the more
opportunities I get, and I thinkthe Times Higher Education Award
was useful for that. And mydoctorate, when it gets
recognized will also be anopportunity, as my supervisor
says, to sit at tables, but Iwon't be passive at that table,
if I feel that there arepositions again being taken, I

(45:40):
will deconstruct thosepositions. Because I think that
if you look enough at the lightand the dark, and you spend
enough time in both of thosespheres, it's quite a good way
of having those conversationswith people.
Yeah, definitely. And it'sreally interesting, actually,
that you refer to the Matrix,the film the Matrix as an

(46:01):
example, because, of course,that ties in with the idea of
deconstruction as well, doesn'tit in terms of, you know, those
characters navigating, you know,what was real to them, and the
idea of these different parallelworlds, and, of course, you talk
a lot about being set free andfreeing the soul, the demise of

(46:25):
the self and the true self. AndI wondered whether, through your
teaching, particularly with withnurses and how they deal with
trauma, or those ideas of beingset free and freeing the soul,
finding the true self, are thesekinds of completely new

(46:49):
considerations for themselves?
Hmm, I think that, you know, Ithink that that's, you know,
that's the beauty really, of theof the doctorate is, it's
exploring spaces that are notnecessarily meant to come
together. And you know, and Ithink that the, like, you say
that the heretical so, you know,when you look at principial

(47:11):
works, when you look at workslike Meister Eckhart and you look
at Ekhart Tolle's work and youlook, you know, modern
philosophers as well, you know,Brant is a modern speaker, there
are lots of others, Lemn Sissay, allof these people are having a
conversation. But very rarely doyou allow those to come together
with like, you know, a childhoodgame of Kerplunk and Schopenhauer's

(47:33):
work. But that's what I like todo, I like to put elements
together. And I've always donethat, as a child, I've always
enjoyed, you know, there'spictures of me constantly
picking up pebbles and puttingthem in my pocket, or wanting to
create new structures. That'sjust part of the inquiry based
mind. And that's what I've seenin nurses, when they start to

(47:54):
express that trauma. And they'regiven a place of safety to do
that. And that safety has like asafety net around it, much like
the patient that comes in to seeme has like a consultation,
safety net, where I want them toknow that they are valued, and
they can come back and see me.Same with the student in the
process of learning, a lot ofthem continue to talk to me,

(48:16):
even when they're off plowing,they're professionals
professionalism and theiridentity, they still talk back
to me in a in a language oflove. So there is definitively
something that exists withinthose spaces where they
deconstruct and they form a newidentity, that allows them to
offer something out thatresonates differently. And I

(48:37):
think that we could talk aboutmultiple things. But the poem,
that I've just recited talksspecifically about the Indian
idea of Shiva, Sat-Chit-Ananda so existence, consciousness and
bliss. And the thing about thosethree paradigms is that you must
kind of understand that they arecyclical, but you also, and

(49:01):
they're centrally part of one ofthe biggest pieces of work I've
done, which was was the galleryof the true self realized. But
what's more important about thatis that you, when you come to a
point of existence, you know, ifyou talk to some people, they
genuinely don't have that sensethat they have a value enough to
exist if they talk genuinelyabout their identity. There's

(49:22):
that crisis internal, and thencan be bound consciousness. And
within those two paradigms ofbecoming, you then have the
paradigm of bliss. And that canbe structurally done. It can be
done in a number of ways, but Itend to do it through the
process of, of learning, and Ithink that it needs to be moved

(49:42):
into multiple spheres. That'sthe aspirational hope is that
someone listens to this podcastor finds my doctorate and
eventually says, We want to givethis gentleman an Arts
Foundation grant of some sortwhere he can take this work and
take it to places that it hasn'tbeen. And then we can see that
action research lived out sothat it can be proved that

(50:04):
people are asking for it.Because you, you know, you and I
both know that society is cryingout for something. And I think
that thing is to be loved.
Yes, certainly, there is a, atragic lack of, of love in the
world, you know, whether it's,you know, obvious extremities of

(50:30):
wars, of soaring poverty, andthere is just such a lack in the
world, and how people respond tothat is also becoming harder and
harder, because depravations areincreasing all the time. And

(50:53):
actually, in terms of whatyou're just saying, and how the
use of poetry is so significantin terms of your your teaching
with with training nurses, therewas a poem that a nurse had
shared with you, that was sharedonline. And she simply, I made a

(51:15):
note of a few lines, and shesimply made the note, the point
of "I am more than a nurse, I amme. And I am wrapped around my
patient's pain." And she goes onto say "The acceptance of
responsibility weighs heavily onmy mind." And those are just

(51:38):
extracts from from from herparticular poem. And I thought
it was just so powerful becausein terms of everything she was
saying, it's very much anassertion, she's trying to
assert herself who she is thatshe is more than one self even.
And the level of responsibilitythat comes with care or coping

(52:00):
with trauma or helping someoneelse cope with their trauma. It
was such an importantexpression.
Yeah, I think that that's,that's that perfectly is
represented by the idea of, ofthe imaginal cell I was, I
was very fortunate to be askedby Dr. Kate McGowan from the CCU

(52:24):
Arts Hub to produce this, thisplay that I've spoken about a
little bit, which was, which wasall about the deconstruction and
reconstruction of sorts of ideasof value around dyslexia. But it
was much, much deeper than that.And I had pieces of artwork that
are in the in the most recentmodern art exhibit called
Artefacts. And some of thosewere people that had lost

(52:45):
children to leukemia, people whohad had physical altercations
sexual altercations, that havechanged their, you know, their
feeling of who they are, youknow, very, very strong internal
messages. And it's, it was, itwas at that point, I decided
that I wanted to have this onequestion, which was, does the

(53:05):
caterpillar know that one day itwill become a butterfly? I had
never looked at anything, youknow, it was just something of
transformation for me. Andobviously, now we know the
butterfly is a central theme inall of my work. But I then
started to research and I foundout that the butterfly has this
particular cell, called theimaginal cell. And what the the

(53:30):
imaginal cell can do is it cancarry a sort of a message of
what it will become. And and sowhen I talk to my students about
their work, I say is a processof transformation don't believe
that you will start a degree asone individual and then you will
go out as another one just witha professional identification.
That would be silly. This is avocation. You know, vocations

(53:51):
are very important. Professionalideology is very important, not
the professional standard. I'mtalking about the reality of how
you embody yourself being anurse, I am Tom, and I'm a nurse
when you come to see me it'sexactly the same as if you were
in this podcast, there isn't adifferentiation because I've
reached a point of what Maslowcalls actualization. His work

(54:14):
goes way beyond that into thetranscendental realm. If you
read the Further Reachesof Human Nature, which is a
truly beautiful book, alongsidethe others that I've mentioned,
I know that people will haveprobably 30 books to write down
but that's, it's an importantpart. The imaginal cell is about
this little caterpillar and thenI thought, I wonder if that
caterpillar sits there on a leafand just goes, Oh, or sees a

(54:38):
butterfly and goes, you know,one day, that's going to be me a
bit like that a bit inLabyrinth, where the little
caterpillar invites you in for acup of tea. You know, it's
really important that we playwith our thinking and pan
psychism there's a beautifulbook, I forget the author's name
around the awakening of themind, but the beauty of moving

(55:00):
from one point and then goinginto a liquid state is, Does
that hurt you? No does it? Doesit happen to be carrying a sense
of pain, some of the biggestthings that have occurred to me
in my lifetime, the fear oflosing a child, the loss of a
child, between my two boys havebeen the foundations of mine and
my wife's relationship, youknow, both of our, we call

(55:23):
ourselves the geeks that foundeach other, you know, it's very
important that limiting ideologyof Schopenhauer, life is
literally just a pendulum. Itmoves from pain, to boredom,
pain, to boredom, you know,like, we must embrace the
pessimists, the blues artistshad it right, "My life,

(55:44):
my life is awful, my wife hasgone, but at least I've got the
dog and my guitar." You know, Ithink there's something really
important about how we bear thepain of being within a system
that doesn't care. And until itdoes care, and we get a
governmental process that reallystarts to look at trying to live
within that care and that senseof understanding people in need.

(56:08):
I think it's going to continueto be a big issue, you know, and
I think that that's part of myaspirational hope, really, with
the arts fellowship grant isthat I can find some way of
being, like I've said in theblog, I'm looking for a patron,
I'm looking for someone to say,Okay, we trust in what you're
doing, you have to come back tous at certain points. But please

(56:29):
go out and try to find thingsthat make sense.
Yeah, and I think all of thispoints beautifully to the play
that you've you've mentionedduring the podcast. So the play
draws on such beautiful Japanesephilosophy, Gold Kintsugi. So

(56:57):
to share with the listeners,this is a reference to an
ancient Japanese technique whereif an object was broken, the
repairs were made with gold. Sothe cracks were enhanced. And
what I really love about that,and how it relates to everything

(57:17):
you've been talking about, andof course, your play, is you're
not hiding what is different,or what is seen as broken. And
broken, of course, as a word isdebatable in terms of how minds
are different. But nevertheless,you're adopting that same idea

(57:39):
where you're asserting you'reenhancing what's different.
Yeah, interesting, actually, thethe reason for the master
teaching the student thatKintsugi was to help the student
to understand the beauty of theflaw that was that was created
within the piece of work thatwas intended to pass through

(58:00):
firing without incident, and itwould be a way of the student
really recognizing thetendencies potentially within
themselves. And now I've adoptedthat, you know, probably fairly
crudely, to be a representationof the realities of the flaws
that exist within us. And Italked about the advertised
gold, you know, and I'm in theprocess of hopefully fixing a

(58:22):
piece that's very important tome. And it's something that
Jonathan Barnes and, and Cherry,who's an exceptional, you know,
artist, and those two are such amassive inspiration to me.
Jonathan Barnes has a reallybeautiful soul. And he he's sort
of spoken to me and I wouldconsider that he is one of the
shepherds that sits around thefire along with Alex and myself,

(58:42):
I would argue that those are thethe individuals that sit within
the Wandering Lamb. So yeah,it's hugely important that we
recognize each other's flaws andthat they aren't then used as a
point of barter that you know,that they're not used as a way
of manipulating or makingsomeone feel more vulnerable. I
teach a lot about um, positionsof affinity bias and, and, you

(59:05):
know, the idea of the sort ofsocial justice model within
health care, you know, someonewho's very influential to me, as
well is Paula Kuzbit, Dr. PaulaKuzbit's, who's about to submit
her doctorate also is veryinvolved in this construct of
how society is perceptive of usand how we are perceptive of
society. But yes, the the playeris going to be something because

(59:27):
it's, it's roughly scripted, andit's symbiotic with the
audience. So it's almost as ifit's a therapeutic event in
itself, co constructed with theaudience and the trauma that
exists within the room. Andwe're going to allow it to ebb
and flow. But I've constructedtwo pieces of music with Dr. Sam
Bailey. One of them is trust.Trust is a piece of music that

(59:49):
I've written and we've coconstructed on a piano and then
there's a position of trauma.And that piece is done by a
cellist a beautiful cellist whowill play that and then they
come together in The sonata format the end where they conclude
with love. So it is lookingquite exciting and it looks like
the arts. The arts grant isthere but we are going to come

(01:00:10):
out very soon I'll be askingcap in hand on Kickstarter,
which I'm very keen for you tohelp me with to get it out to
the art community, where we canjust get the money together to
pay for like the artists and theactresses, bus fares to the
event and things because that'show it is, shoestring arts are
very much and I've been welcomedinto that, Free Range, you know,

(01:00:32):
I must mention is anunderstanding, it's an
understanding that I never hadbefore that there's a community
out there of people reallybeautiful people being
improvisational and wonderfuland trying to make a difference.
And Sam Bailey in CanterburyFree Range Festival is something
definitely worth investing timein. And they have, they've
welcomed me and I feel almost asif the hobo poet has found his

(01:00:57):
home. But obviously, the problemwith me is that I always move on.
Yes certainly on your episode pageof this podcast, we can signpost
to the Kickstarter link. Andhopefully listeners can discover
for themselves more of your ownwork, whether they can come and

(01:01:18):
visit the Artefact exhibitionCome and see your play,
I'll signpost all of this onyour episode page. I wondered if
there's anything that you mightwant to to leave the listeners
with? Or even a few lines ofpoetry?
Yeah, I'm trying to I'm tryingto find because I've got I've
got a lot. I've got a lot ofpoems that yeah, actually, yeah,

(01:01:44):
I have got one actually, whichis called the Puppet Master. The
Puppet Master is quite it'squite challenging poem. But
it's, it would be a really goodway of understanding how it
feels to have those kind ofneuro atypical tendencies. I
haven't read it in quite a whileand it is quite, it's quite
challenging to the to thelistener, but more around maybe

(01:02:05):
a position that they might havean affinity with are aligned
with. So I'll read that as aconclusion, because it concludes
with the statements of thecentral themes of my PhD which
is trust and trauma and love. "Aghost within my own reality. I
feel the strings of the puppetmaster today pulling up my tired

(01:02:27):
mind contortions andfrustrations and positions of
pain. Everything I say and do isfilled with a pretense of
meaningless movements, vacuousspaces of darkness everyone and
everything is part of aperformance and we rest within a
play cast by others. Be the poetbe the thinker be the artist to
be the dad be the husband noneof this is a reality we sit as

(01:02:51):
entities in a reality defined bychance, moved and played with,
we rest when told, I see thelife's lies they stretch out
like a juice. So spider's web,the social tools laid out as if
etched into stone, but thecracks are formed new with a
fool's gold. So I move as ifunseen, a ghost within my own

(01:03:14):
reality. I whisper reassuranceto my fractured soul. Trust
trauma, love."
Oh, that's lovely. Thank youvery much for reading and
sharing that and as you say,that really does pull everything
together that we've talkedabout. Tom, thank you so much

(01:03:35):
for making all this time. I'm soI'm so glad because this episode
will share such distinctperspectives, particularly from
your point of view, as a nursewith trauma experience as
someone that's lived with orlives with complex dyslexia, and
just the humanity that you offerin return for all of that. So

(01:03:59):
thank you so much for sharingall of that, and I hope people
will follow the signposts andfollow the hobo poet.
I hope so. It'd be lovely tobuild up a little community of
kind of little beatniks youknow, that little beat community
is something that I I've sort ofstarted to understand now within
the arts community, and it's avery important pulse. You know,

(01:04:20):
your statement of can art saveus. Yes. And actually, it's a
space where most of that lovewill emanate. And I think that
I, I want to be part of thatcaravan of love. I want to be
part of that process of makingchange for people and, you know,
to quote Stevie Wonder, youknow, love needs love today. We
need to send it in right away,don't delay. You know, it really

(01:04:41):
is really important. The mostimportant thing is I get to meet
the wandering lambs just to tellthem it's okay.
Yeah, that's absolutely lovely.A field, fields and fields full
of happy wandering lambs who cancontinue to wander but knowing
they have a home and knowingthey have love Thank you Tom.

(01:05:01):
Pleasure.