Do you actually believe the wild story you tell in your book?

Yes. Absolutely. Parasocial Activity is a memoir. I believe the story. I think that Jon Stewart and John Oliver (and others) embedded secret messages for me into their late-night-TV shows, as part of a complicated investigation of the mental health system. And I believe that we’re all going to work together to attempt to intervene in the present crisis in our national politics, by trying to get someone responsible and ethical into the Oval Office. There are some things that need doing in the world, and we’re willing to try to get them done. We may go down in flames, but we’re going to try.

That said, two glaringly important caveats remain.

First: I recognize that I’m probably not right about everything. I may have gotten some of the details wrong or forgotten certain important elements. I may have been overreading some of the videos, where no messages were intended. I may even have falsely-recovered or falsely-reconstructed some aspects of the story, or transplanted nightmares onto the page. Human memory is imperfect.

Second: I do realize that there’s at least a small chance I’m wrong about the whole entire conspiracy, and that none of the secret messages were real, and that I’ve fabricated all of the relevant details and memories entirely. That would be…pretty wild unto itself, frankly, and I don’t think that scenario is at all likely, but sure, it’s possible.

Still, as a general statement: yes, I really do believe the story I’m telling. This is a true-to-memory recounting, the best I can achieve, of what I think happened.

Why do you think the Conspirators haven’t come clean?

As to why the Conspirators haven’t come clean…well, I’m pretty sure that when I laid out the whole conspiracy on the train, I also pre-set certain conditions I had to meet for them to come clean:

• I needed to finish the book about the whole experience. This requirement was to give me the necessary motivation and time-urgency to finally finish a book-length project, which I’ve never before been able to do.

• I needed to successfully dig most of the plan and train conversation out of my brain and put it substantively back together. I’m not sure I’ve gotten all of it, but I think I’ve managed enough to satisfy that precondition. Although, one wild note on that front: since finishing the book, I’ve actually dug out two more noteworthy ideas (and possible facets of the plan) that (I think) I mentioned that day on the train. I’m still working out how to write those up effectively, but they’re subordinate to the larger overall plan, so I think I’m fine to have left them out for now. I’ll have to save them for a follow-up shorter piece, or a future edition of the book.

• I needed to be sober for a good long while first. On the day I set up this whole wild conspiracy, I remember emphasizing that I needed a reason to be sober. At that point, I’d been struggling with substance-use for years, and I was pretty out of control, both with alcohol and with weed. But my memory of that day is very sketchy in this regard, so I’m not sure how long I was supposed to be sober before they’d come clean. For a while I thought (hoped?) that the goal was six months, but…well, that marker has recently come and gone, with still no word from the Conspirators, so that doesn’t seem to have been the requirement, after all. So, in the tradition of failed prophets everywhere, I’m choosing not to lessen my belief in the overall worldview, and I’m moving the mental deadline to one year of sobriety. At least that’ll give me a reason to stay sober a while longer now. So, we’ll see what happens in late April, presuming I’m still sober then.

Is your theory/story falsifiable?

This is an important question that I get a lot, because it relates to the logical weaknesses of a conspiratorial tale like this. If a story or theory isn’t falsifiable, then it’s likely not particularly rigorous in terms of evidence-based reasoning, and it’s probably exceptionally susceptible to confirmation-bias and motivated reasoning. Part of the problem here is that I do recognize that at least some of what I remember may be confabulated (false or imagined), and yet I still believe the overall story the memories tell. As a result, quite a few individual memories could indeed fall apart without my deciding that the story as a whole is false, which does point at certain logical problems (including immunity to disproof).

However, I can think of a handful of things that would probably make me disbelieve the greater story, even if they might be hard evidence to actually get in practice. For instance:

1. If I saw video of my encounter with the police out front of CBS disproving my account. CBS has the security footage, no doubt, and I’ve recently requested the police bodycam footage, but that window is probably going to shut before I get a satisfactory answer, since it’s still going to be several months before I hear back, and the police only keep the video for a certain time-frame absent a compelling reason to retain it, a time-frame which will have expired by the expected response date.

2. If Jon Stewart or John Oliver signed a sworn statement denying it.

3. If I ever found Josh and Tamara, or if they read this story and contacted me, and they similarly denied my account of the train conversation.

4. If I never, ever heard back from anyone at either show. It might take a while, but I’d bet that my belief would gradually fade over time, particularly if they don’t get back to me before the next election.

5. If any of my mental health professionals ever tried to contact either show to check the story, and the shows denied it. (I’m not completely sure that it would work to convince me I was wrong, but it would at least move the needle in that direction.)

Why did you post the book for free and public-domain it?

The short answer is that doing so was the only way I felt I could really uphold the creative and political ethics of the project.

The longer answer is that I don’t believe anyone should have to pay for access to this story, especially when it comes to the project’s exploration of mental health, since this book is, in large part, an attempt to help people understand what it’s like to be disbelieved by everyone in your life, including your doctors. That’s the traumatic reality for a lot of people with mental disorders, many of whom can’t effectively tell their own stories to the world, or afford the personal risks associated with going public with such a crazy story. In addition, since I don’t need the money anyway, it seems somehow wrong to seek to profit directly off this book, especially since I repeatedly advocate in the book the principle that certain good ideas should be freely shared with the world, when plausible.

I’m not yet sure if I’ll public-domain any future book-length projects I may undertake; that remains to be seen. But at least when it comes to this first book, flawed as it may be, I really do think it has a story the public should hear, and the objectives and content of the book are such that it has felt like something I should turn over to the world for free.

Are you really running for President?

Frankly, strange as this may sound, I’m still not quite sure. The answer to that question depends on how the next couple of months shake out, and on whether I ever hear anything back from Jon Stewart. Does he want to run? Do he and the Conspirators have another candidate in mind? I don’t really know yet, and I’ll need to consult with others before making a final decision. I get into this discussion in detail in the Epilogue, but there are some things in this world that need doing, and I aim to see them done, if I can. Whatever form that may take.

Like I’ve said, I do think the shows are going to go public, fairly soon, with their side of the story. And even if I’m wrong about everything else, I’m willing to bet that Jon Stewart is going to read this book, sooner or later.

So…we’ll see what Jon has to say.

What the heck is a syllogismobile?

That’s a fair question. I address syllogismobiles pretty late in the book, but the term also comes up on page two, so a lot of people are confused at first. Basically, it’s a neat idea I picked up from a fantasy book called The Compleat Enchanter. In the book, a syllogismobile is a method for traveling between worlds (and, in some ways, of changing the world around you). Basically, you write out an enormously complex logical chain, describing the world you’re trying to conjure (…if A, then B, except when principle 12 is active…), and in so doing, you actually prove that you’re already in the target world. And boom! Since you’ve proved it to be true, then you really have traveled to that world—or at least rewritten the world around you.

I always thought that was a pretty great idea. That careful and persuasive writing could change the world. We shall see if this book manages to cause any positive change to our world. Dare to dream.