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Headlessness. The straps keep breaking...
2005-12-28 @ 8:11 p.m.

In this non-stop, seemingly endless, pusuit of life, I find myself sleeping close to death. Last night, I cheated death. My friend in art class said that I seemed to have a smirk or smile that seemed to say that I had "gotten lucky" last night. Thinking about it on the way home up until now I now think he was right--not in the sense that he thought though. I cheated death last night. I nearly cheated on life--I had the overwhelming urge to overdose, and I was fearful of myself. I am and was fearful of my capacity to think about aborting myself so easily. Really, I don't know what to make of it.

Thus, my quest to figure out who I am and why I am like this continues. It is difficult to leave the house and to speak to people. I want to be contained in this unit, this capsule of a house--a pill that has taken me in. I find myself scared, almost literally, to death to leave this place that feels like home to me. I let my guard down and let myself "be" here. I opened myself up for an easy wound, a would almost invincible to any sort of treatment.

All of this talk sounds sick, ill, and crazy. I never really truly believed in the possibility of my lack of sanity. What does that even mean? I need to do something.

I must be writing this down for some reason. I document everything in photos, poems, songs, diaries, collages, and online journals. Surely I am telling myself something. I keep saying "this is all an illusion," and I understand what it means, but now I am doubting myself. I cannot be crazy. Maybe crazy is not such a horrible overall problem that I am making it. I am functioning, but at a nearly impossible satisfactory rate.

Is it that I cannot understand? Is it a feature that is possible to understand, or do I lack it? What do others make of themselves? I am searching, and I found a website that has some interesting stuff. I just cut and pasted the following information about "headlessness":

This method of self-enquiry, sometimes called 'headlessness' or 'seeing who you really are' ('seeing' for short), has been pioneered by the English philosopher and workshop leader Douglas E. Harding, born in 1909. It is a contemporary approach which investigates the question Who am I? and suggests that you can see Who you really are here and now. It provides simple but deep awareness exercises that direct you to this Seeing within yourself.

Background.
In the 1930's D.E. Harding was asking himself the question Who am I? He realised that what he appeared to be to others depended on their range from him. His observations and thinking included the following: at several feet he appeared human, but closer to he was just an eye, cells, molecules, atoms, electrons and so on, down to practically nothing. Moving away but still looking at him, the external observer lost sight of his individual form which became absorbed into humanity, life, the planet, the solar system, the galaxy. The map he drew of himself looked like an onion with many layers. The human layer was half-way out from the centre.


The question Harding became particularly concerned with was: What or who is at the centre? This question was of vital importance to him partly because it was during the Second World War, Harding was in India, and threat of invasion from the East loomed. He wanted to find out who he really was before he died. In a sense, any other question became secondary to this one: Who am I really?
Harding finally discovered what and who was at centre not by thinking but simply by looking. This moment is described in his book 'On Having No Head' (Arkana). Basically, he realised he could see his legs, arms, trunk, but not his head. From where he was looking, he was headless. Instead of his head there was nothing - clear space, emptiness. And in this space was the world. He had 'lost a head and gained a world'.

This experience corresponds to what in other traditions might be called Liberation, Enlightenment, seeing God, seeing the Void, being centred.

Following this, Harding wrote The Hierarchy of Heaven and Earth, (1952) a great book (prefaced by C.S.Lewis) which places this experience in the context of contemporary and traditional world-views. It makes sense of this inseeing in terms of contemporary science. It is a contemporary map of our place in the universe. Harding also developed awareness exercises or'experiments' whose purpose is to test the truth of this perspective.

There are some experiments on this website as well.

to read more--
http://www.headless.org/

---- Back to me.... ------

Okay, what is all that and this to say about me? This vast empty mass is sitting above my chest allowing me to view the world. These eyes are biased, and I am unclear what others think, know, feel, act, and normalcy. What is normalcy? How can I be an abnormality? I just do not understand? Do normal people not feel like this? Questioning so much? I hate hearing that I am sick. I thought it was more like the flu, and now I find out it is more like cancer. It's harder to get over.

Rose Kennedy once asked why birds sing after a storm while humans cannot rejoice after a their own problems. Actually her words were "Birds sing after a storm; why shouldn't people feel as free to delight in whatever remains to them?" Rose Kennedy--I feel responsible and compelled to get her beautiful words reasonably out there. What type of woman has this sort of intellect and insight to share?

I think of Virginia Wolff, and I want to believe that I am capable of that type of exquisit insight--to delight and consort with that type of pain. I don't know if I am taking the long route to life or if I tried taking a shortcut, but I am paying for it. I am not quiet about it.

I did not set out to write so much. I am trying so hard.

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