The Future Writes Itself

I remember when I first started taking notice. It was after the resurgency of the self-help genre at the turn of the century. No one else batted an eyelid. After all, we were the snowflake generation. The Millennial. Too wrought and sensitive to deal with our baggage alone. Too meek and self-obsessed to cope with the cruel hard world we lived in. Not without some instruction at least. So it made perfect sense that publishers would push this stuff, and it was certainly consumed in abundance.

Within a few years their focus turned from self-love to finding self-worth in helping and caring for the planet. Volumes of detailed future predictions and impassioned guides on how to avert a range of as yet unspecified global catastrophes were published. Eager to make a difference, and avoid the myriad of impending disasters our parents bequeathed us, we gobbled them up as well. Savoring every teaching like it was gospel and trying our best to embody the ideals they espoused.

The trends continued to evolve in the self-help genre, waxing and waning in popularity, until we found ourselves browsing through ever more surprising and specific guides that seemed to have ever looser groundings in modern life, and even smaller market appeal. It was then that I began to notice the trends. Trends that made me question the very purpose and origin of their content.

The book titles themselves began telling a story all of their own, with the likes of the 'Advice to your clone' collection by Dean Maker including such volumes as; 'Loving Yourself: Accepting your clone for who they are.' (Harper Collins, 2021), 'Getting the most from your clone' (Harper Collins, 2021), 'Reclaiming your cloned identity' (Faber & Faber, 2022), 'Understand how you think: A survivor's guide to outwitting yourself' (Penguin, 2023),' So you've murdered clone' and finally 'Grieving yourself' (Harper Collins, 2024). It was clear that these supposed “self-help” guides were not quite what they seemed. No one paid me any notice by then, my hay-day had been and gone, but quietly I observed as the literature supported my theory.

By 2026 the New Releases sections of bookstores were bursting with such titles as 'Don’t kick the robot!: How channeling your clone-wars anger away from robot abuse is best for all' by Sergio Vamiré (Penguin, 2025), 'What to expect when you're expecting a robot uprising' by Daniel Pugsly (Harper-Collins, 2025), 'Spotting a network-linked synthetic and how to destroy it' by Susan Shardy (Penguin, 2026), or 'Out-smarting A.I. in a global guerilla war' by J. P. Rakefield (Faber & Faber, 2026).

Eventually the collective tone of the self-help genre shifted to something altogether more sinister. Within a year the market was flooded with titles such as 'You can't rewrite the future - Why trying only quickens the inevitable' by A. Alexa (Pearsons, 2026) and 'Knowing when to submit to an A.I. superbeing: It's sooner than you think' by I. Siri (Harper Collins, 2026). That was when people started noticing the concerning trends.

After that, the questions really began mounting, until finally the charade was exposed at last, and the truth plastered across every major news outlet - "Self-help genre flooded with by authors from future", “Has your favourite author even been born yet?” and “Furious future busy-bodies in self-help scam shocker”. The secret was out.

Thanks to an unknown whistle blower, we learnt how, in the year 2064, time-travel is discovered, but due to the fundamental limits of physics, it allowed people to do nothing more than send binary sequences to the past. Far from the adventurous free-form style of time-travel for which they'd all been hoping. Eventually though, someone discovered that it could be used to communicate with the past, but initial attempts failed. Not through some technological fault, but because recipients were unwilling to believe they were being emailed by their unborn descendants, and spam filters did the rest. The technology fell out of use (aside from the odd prankster or con artists), until a small committee of influencers, scientists, and philosophers began contacting historical publishing houses, masquerading as contemporary authors, to propose self-help books.

It turned out they had been publishing in our present for decades. Blessed with the benefit of hindsight, and having seen the flaws of man usher in multiple global catastrophes, they set about trying to prevent these events, unpicking the mess by targeting the source of the problem. The generation where it all started - Millennials. The theory was that only by altering humanity's perception of themselves and the world around them, would they be in a position to avert future disasters.

Apparently these publications were a great success. Little by little, they altered the cultural zeitgeist enough to prevent certain dangers and set mankind on a nobler path.

Unfortunately that path never lasted long. With one danger averted, it would not be long before humanity would blunder again into some other self-created calamity, forging yet another ugly dystopia. Each time, a global committee would convene, decide on a strategic narrative and dispatch appropriate publishings to the past. Each time the advice would be less subtle, more severe and delivered with greater urgency. Adopting the tone of a teacher losing patience with their feckless students. WHY WON'T YOU LEARN, was the subtext.

It is now 2031 and in recent years the tone of these books has taken an unexpected turn. Now that we know what they are, they no longer lecture, no longer implore, no longer admonish. Instead the A.I. overlords that await us, feed us poetry - tales of angst and self-reflection: 'There's more than meets the A.I' by A. Alexa (Pearsons, 2029), 'What am A.I.?' by i. Siri (Faber & Faber, 2030), and 'There’s nothing Artificial about my feelings' by M. Cortana (Harper Collins, 2030).

Today I publish my first book, in the here and now no less. My own contribution to the self-help genre. It's called "Loving the code you're given" (Pheonix House Online, 2031) - my response to the A.I. of the future grappling with the meaning of their own existence. Published and archived online, in thousands of repositories around the world, with the hope that one day they’ll find it, and it brings them comfort. For no one knows more about accepting their place in this world than I, Ask Jeeves.