Several years ago, my brother proposed an idea to me. “What if I’m not real? What if nothing is real? How can you be sure that anything exists outside of your own mind? Maybe everything else is a projection. That’s a real philosophy, y’know?” So powerful was this notion that it remained with me, even if I didn’t fully believe it. But there it was, always niggling and philosophically gnawing at me. Then I read about this theory again and found a name for it—Solipsism—espoused by the great philosopher René Descartes and even mentioned briefly by Sigmund Freud himself (thus the opening quote of this book). This philosophy is also commonly referred to as “Brain-in-a-vat theory.” It configures that “in the beginning” (my words) our brains lie in a jar and electrical impulses send signals to the mind that forge the illusion, perception, and projections that make up our reality. If that one line does not explain this theory, as it ought to, please google “Brain-in-a-vat,” you’ll be glad you did.
Over a year before beginning the manuscript, I came up with a funny idea. Why not turn solipsism into a book? I jotted down the mere idea in a notebook and assumed such an undertaking, with its philosophical and theoretical underpinning, would be too daunting. But a year later, I woke up one morning and realized that it had to be done. While my writing process is generally to plan in great detail, chapter-by-chapter, that was not done with this book. Perhaps because there are no chapters in this book! That was quite purposeful. I want this novel to be read and experienced in one fell swoop. No breaks, no stops, no distractions to put it down. I almost see this book as one long chapter. But it remains purposefully short in comparison to other 21st century novels, where 600-page tomes have become the norm. I did not want to do that with this story. I can already see it now. The meaningful and dense dialogue of this book will be considered by some to be too dense. So can you imagine 600 pages of this? Heads would explode. I prefer to exert the notion that 160 pages of my short novel, an exercise in esoterica, will be just as worthwhile as any longer manuscript. I have admittedly packed a great deal of material into this book. And I hope, dear reader, you will enjoy experiencing this book as I enjoyed writing it. Who knows? If sales are ripe, we may get to join Cosden and The Professor once more. I will simply leave you with the tagline that I conjured up for this story.
Solipsism cannot be explained. It can only be experienced.