The Unlocked Door
The Unlocked Door Thesis is literally a thesis. It is not an easy “self-help” or “burn everything down” framework that you can absorb in a simple catchphrase, so stay with me until the end.
The tl;dr version: People are stuck because there are four different levels of conditioning via coercive control mechanisms keeping us from leaving: internal, relational, generational, systemic. Liberation can only come when we recognize all four and move to shed them, but it MUST begin with the internal layer.
Now, the fun narrative version:
Bob has been running on a treadmill for decades, believing that if he runs fast enough, he will go outside. But what Bob doesn’t realize is that… it’s a treadmill. You do not go anywhere on a treadmill. But Bob keeps running on the treadmill because he was told to run on the treadmill. But even that wasn’t that simple with Bob. Bob did not make the treadmill. Bob doesn’t really want the treadmill. And even then, Bob only has a treadmill.
You see, at some point Bob got this lovely house from his family. He liked the house but didn’t get to look at other houses. Whenever he tried, his parents were sad, so he stayed with the house. One day, Bob was trying to look outside, but he met this lovely person who saw he had a house and wanted to join him. Only, this person just wanted to leech off of Bob. They didn’t let Bob think of anything outside of the house, and Bob got ok with staying inside. But the person left one day and he decided to stay, because what else would Bob do? Now, one day, a package appeared at his door with a treadmill and some instructions saying that running on it would get him a bigger house. So Bob did, and that’s why we’re here. Poor Bob.
Now, what Bob needs is to get off the treadmill. Because once he is off the treadmill, he can think about running outside. And once he can think about running outside, he can finally check the door and leave.
But Bob can’t get off a treadmill he doesn’t know exists… He needs to see the treadmill and the house and the person who got him there, and the hardest part: to realize that he kept himself there.
When he sees it all, he can make a conscious decision to stop keeping himself there and then go reckon with the person who was there, the house, and whoever delivered a treadmill to poor Bob in his reclusivity. However, if Bob tries to leave without reckoning with what kept him there, Bob will only end up in another house, on another treadmill that looks different but is the same.
I am Bob. You are Bob. We are all Bob.
The door’s unlocked. You can’t check because you’re on a treadmill and you’ve been telling yourself the door was locked the whole time. Because if you realize it’s unlocked and you never checked, you have to reckon with how long you stayed there (and that sucks).
This is a collective self-liberation movement for people of all ages and backgrounds.
The Woman in the Mirror
So what’s that have to do with the Woman in the Mirror Tetralogy, you ask?
Each of these four independent works symbolizes a different level of the thesis. (Independent because I did not plan for these to be in dialogue with one another—I only saw they were connected in July!)
Visions (Internal)
Siren (Relational)
Roots Torn, Routes Chosen (Generational)
The Solars Book 1 (Systemic)
And, each work demonstrates all four levels of the thesis despite having a place in the meta arc. The goal? Everyone will arrive at the same thesis in the form that resonates with them the most. The Woman in the Mirror is me in this regard (or my subconscious because she did all this somehow). I reflect back a truth you haven’t sat with at whatever level you’re able to sit with it so that you can one day recognize the treadmill and house and do something about it.
Fun fact: I don’t yet know what happens after we go outside—I haven’t lived it yet! This tetralogy is only Act 1 in the meta arc. (I’m only 29, so we got plenty of time to see it all play out.)
Caged
Caged is a three-act play in development that stages the unlocked door thesis as a prequel to the novel Siren.
Premise: When stuck in her house, Mary soon realizes she’s not as alone as she thought. She carries the voices of the people who brought her there.
