Sitting in philosophy class, when I heard the reasoning behind Cartesian Circle and the subsequent idea of Solipsism, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I was scared to death and spent that weekend with my mind in a mire.

But then my kind mistress, History, offered me some solace. She made me question whether her teachings could reconcile with a view that my mind is the only thing existing or possibly ever to exist. If only my mind existed, how the heck was I able to conjure up the idea of Rene Descartes being a super-awesome philosopher in the 17th century? How would I have been able to establish a personality and personal history for someone that I had never met? (Given, that all people that I meet are just sensate projections of my mind, or mere hallucinations. A person I had not met, or a person who had “died” is impossible to experience by the senses, even, it would follow, those contained within my sole mind.) There is no way my mind is that smart.

I countered my mistress, claiming that perhaps my mind had been in a state of passive, history-creating sleep since time began, but had not yet woken up my conscious (ala The Matrix .) After a scolding glance, I realized the seeming impossibility of this idea. So seeming, that I rejected it.

Just as History and I were finishing our conversation, a gorgeous woman crossed our paths, hair swishing in the soft spring wind. Her flashing smile dazzled me, and History had to force me back to the realm of ideas.

The woman, however, served as further proof that the Solipsism that had been plaguing me could not be true. My mind, in all its creative capabilities, could not create something as beautiful, magnificent, or wondrous as the human form.

So, having thoroughly consoled me, History left me to seek the girl who disproved Solipsism.