I like to learn things in two ways: top-down, and bottom-up.

Top-down is the big picture. The 100,000 feet view. The executive summary.

Most times this is enough. If I am able to grok it right here, I move on.

Some times, the abstraction level is too high. Or there are some leaky abstractions that drop me into a lower level, and I can only proceed after I’ve understand things at that level first. And then there are times when one has to drop all the way to the very bottom, and then climb all the way back up.

This is a book about my journey of understanding the Truth. Yes, capital T.

I grew up an engineer, I work in the software / tech industry, and I have fairly low emotional IQ. People call me frank and honest, which can be painful, but everyone always knows where I stand on issues. In other words, I like to get straight to the point.

I say this because there is no other way to say some of the things I say in the book. If you keep an open mind, and keep reading, and suspend disbelief during your reading, everything will change for you. So here goes!

For reasons that may become apparent later in the book, there came a time in my life when I began to re-examine everything. By itself, this is not particularly remarkable, but in my case the process didn’t stop as I might have expected. It turned out to be the door to a rabbit hole, one that has no ending, because it has no beginning.

So, I found myself re-examining literally every thing in my life, all the way down to my moment to moment experience of the waking state. What I mean by this is that I began to question everything about what I had believed about myself and my reality, down to whether I was really awake, or if I was still dreaming.

And here, a funny thing happened: I couldn’t be sure.