...is the subheading of an essay on Charlie's work, by Colm O'Shea.

"Kaufman's homunculi schema is an implicit mockery of our bottomless ignorance of the nature of consciousness."

Oh, I say that all the time.

For all their elaborate whimsy and genre-defying caprice, there is one constant in Kaufman's various film phantasmagoria: his concern with a specific type of protagonist.

[In] a way Joel is maybe a stand-in for me, you know? And maybe can be likened to Craig and Charlie in those other scripts that I wrote. . . . I do tend to write a certain kind of guy . . .  . It's the only thing I can really do kind of, um, honestly. (cited in Feld, 2004, 136)

Nebbish, cerebral, sensitive, and painfully introverted, the Kaufman surrogate is not a happy guy. His psychological trajectory is not the classical Hollywood heroic arc wherein he achieves love, knowledge, and/or worldly success. (Source)

It's a good read, with a lot of great insight, if you're into this kind of thing.