Escaping the Simulation of Self

Solipsism is the philosophical idea that only one's own mind is sure to exist. For centuries, this was a thought experiment—a terrifying "what if."

Today, it is the default user experience.

Open your phone. The news feed is tailored to your biases. The ads are targeted to your desires. The music recommendations are tuned to your nostalgia. The entire digital universe rearranges itself in real-time to center you.

You are the Main Character. Everyone else is an NPC (Non-Player Character), generated to drive engagement metrics.

The Curated Mirror

This digital solipsism is comfortable. It feels like the world "gets" you. But it is a hall of mirrors. You are not looking at the world; you are looking at a reflection of your own data exhaust, refracted back to you by a server farm in Virginia.

In this simulation, other people are flattened. They become avatars, usernames, and hot takes. We scroll past them like scenery. We engage with them only when they advance our plotline—by liking our posts or validating our opinions.

When they deviate from the script—when they are boring, or difficult, or contradictory—we mute them. We block them. We "curate our feed."

We delete the parts of reality that don't fit the simulation.

The Friction of Others

This is why actual, physical human interaction feels increasingly exhausting to the modern mind.

Real people are not optimized for your retention. They talk about things you don't care about. They have bad breath. They interrupt. They don't get the reference. They are full of friction.

But this friction is the most valuable thing in the world.

Friction is proof of existence. When you bump into a table, the pain tells you the table is real. When you bump into another person's complexity, the frustration tells you that you are not the only thing that exists.

Breaking the Fourth Wall

To escape the simulation of self, we must seek out the friction.

We must have conversations that aren't recorded. We must listen to people who haven't been algorithmically sorted into our tribe. We must sit in the awkward silence of a dinner table where no one is checking a screen.

The value of others is not that they entertain us or validate us. It is that they limit us. They remind us that we are not the center of the universe.

And in that limitation, we find our freedom. Because if we aren't the center of the universe, we don't have to carry the weight of it alone.