Lost A Head And Gained A World

Okay, here’s a pocket religion. Headlessness. In five words:

You don’t have a head.

This whole thinking was assembled by an Englishman named D. E. Harding in the 1930’s. Obviously, I love the idea for its novelty. That a gruesome self-assertion could become enlightening to someone. That one short riddle could be so delicious to people. An entire society who achieve such comfort from being united in decapitation!

The whole microtheology of headlessness is explored in a series of experiments (with accompanying video) at headless.org. At its heart, it’s very safe for your ground-level zen fix, for hippies, for motivational speakers, etc., but it has this very cute absurdity to it.

I think experiment #2, “Your Headless Body,” makes it easiest to grasp.

For other people you have a head on your shoulders, and you are standing the right way up – your feet below the rest of your body. This is your Third Person identity – you as you appear at a distance. You are a person.

But consider another point of view – your own First Person view. Isn’t your body headless, and upside down, with your feet above the rest of your body?

For others you are somebody in the world. For yourself you are space for the world. You are not in the world, the world is in you!

And it goes on from there. If you have no head, the universe seeps into the neckhole. So you are actually nearer to everyone than you think. And I’ve tried this and I can tell you that you will start to crane your neck out without realizing it. And you look pretty lurpy to the headed gentiles.

As with any religion, you have to grapple with a bit of dicey doctrine as you get into it. Here’s what I’m talking about:

I especially have a hard time buying into headlessness because I like wearing fake moustaches and such behavior really doesn’t fit into the headless paradigm and, ultimately, opposes it by producing a bristling sensation under my nose which becomes the focal point of my existence and clutters the empty space (motioning with fingers) here and here. I think I’m going to stick to my own pocket religion, which has worked very well for me over the past many, many years.

Take naps in executive parking spaces.

Anyway, please check out the movies. Washing the dishes. Eating without a mouth. He does so much pointing at the camera that it starts to look like his fingers are the narrators. And it emphasizes fingers as a separate entity, instructors which necessarily teach us to be headless.