Always Solipsistic
Solipsism is a theory holding that the self can know nothing but its own modification and that the self is the only existent thing. The only thing somebody can be sure of is that he or she exists.
Hmmmm….sounds good to me.
Graeme Fife used the description “always solipsistic” about his father in his autobiography, “The Beautiful Machine”. I had a sense of the meaning from a previous life, but I did not know for sure. So I looked it up in the Old Webster’s Dictionary at work.
I am reading “The Beautiful Machine” by Graeme Fife. Last night I read a part about his father. I thought solipsistic…why that word? I am sure Fife used that word a few pages back. I got irritated because there are lots of words to use and if this guy is going to use the same odd, philosophical word in the first 60 pages of the book, how will I stand it?
But me, being not at all solipsistic, went back and tried to find the other instance of solipsism. I could not find it. I found instead: sacrosanct, lachrymose, superfluity, insalubrious, miscreant and mesmeric among others some in English, some in French. Fife is a user of big, important words. He is using them to describe his life and his love of cycling. I am hoping he will begin to use them in a more interesting and entertaining way. Sometimes words get in the way of the stories and the ideas.
Solipsistic, me??? Only babies and cats are solipsistic most of the time.
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