A Mild Irreversible Form of Enlightenment

A Mild Irreversible Form of Enlightenment Anna DeForest (bio) I am better now. At least, I can say this to myself and believe it. And I can tell, for example, the difference between reality and dreams. I have not had to see a psychiatrist in years. I try, though, still, not to hope for anything. I watch myself closely, eat square meals, run a dozen or a few dozen miles most weeks. While I run, I listen to the radio, always the same show, a show on the subject of right living. The guests come on and recommend things: water with lemon, say, or open-water swimming, or mixing lithium with seltzer. Other kinds of guidance, too. One guest came on to say what portion of your money you should give away to charities—charities that his group, his nonprofit, has vetted as well-run and measurably efficacious. End Page 47 The amount is ten percent. This is a biblical number, an Old Testament tithe, but the man on the radio did not admit that. I do not know if I should give my ten percent to digging wells or to distributing mosquito nets, or if I should use it to feed and clothe the refugees who line the sidewalks outside empty midtown hotels. Whatever I do, I want to mean it. So I do not do much. The self is just a vital lie—that is what they say on the radio. The self is a lie and it lies to itself, makes up reasons for doing the things it has already done. ________ my father kept the opposite advice taped to the mirror in his bathroom. Watch what you think—it becomes what you do. My father kept bits of paper all over his house, taped to the refrigerator, to cabinet doors. He was not a man who would otherwise strike anyone as deeply invested in moral formation. But he believed in his own psychic strength. After my crack-up, for the rest of his life, he called me a case, a simp, a loon. This was how he would speak to me, until he got so sick he couldn't speak anymore. The radio show's best regular guest is the man without a head. He recounts on air an endless number of experiments meant to demonstrate the essential first-person truth that no one, individually, has a head. Point to an object, he says. His is a genteel, fatherly affect. He has you describe to yourself the characteristics of the object, say it is a scotch glass, its contours, the slight lick of white where the light bounces off it. Now point to yourself, he says. What is there? Where your head should be, there is nothing. No head. Only a vast emptiness in which the world presents itself. The benefit of this practice is unclear. The man without a head says it is better to live in truth than in illusion. One day on the radio the host makes a special announcement. The man without a head will hold a retreat, to gather any seekers who wish to go deeper into his truths. The retreat is a few hours north of the city. The first hundred listeners who call in at a specified time will not necessarily get to attend but will be guaranteed an opportunity to pay full tuition to do so. A few thousand dollars for End Page 48 eight long days of silence, though there are scholarships, the host notes, for members of certain minoritized groups. I had not known the man without a head had such a large and devout following. I call a few times, half-hearted, when the time comes, and when I get through, hear only a recorded voice. Press one, it says, to be placed on the waitlist. When I hear back, days later, I am surprised. A woman with a pleasant voice offers me a spot on the retreat. As a rule I try to be open to whatever the fates may serve me. Congratulations, she says, after I give her my credit card number. They send via email a large number of forms—medical information. . .