On temporary enlightenment

What if everything, and I mean every single thing, was suddenly clear?

My father told me about a time in his thirties when he felt what can only be described as enlightenment. His thoughts were organized and his awareness was heightened. He was working at a hospital and found himself in highly technical conversations with doctors about medical procedures he’d never studied. He said he no longer felt anxiety or worry and could grasp any concept presented immediately. He understood how everything fell into place, and he said it—life itself, for all its seeming vastness and riddles—made sense.

This state of heightened awareness lasted for an entire week, then came the day that he woke up to find himself feeling exactly as he had before. A smart man still, sure, but as hazy and baffled by world events as ever, as eager to prove himself and no longer able to discuss highly technical medical procedures in-depth, even if he had studied them. He was an orderly at the time and hoped to take art classes. He had no great ambitions. He was a bit neurotic. He was human.

When he told me this story, it reminded me of the first book I read that I couldn’t get out of my head. I remember finishing Flowers for Algernon at around eight years old in the basement of our home, where it was dark but quiet unless the drier was rumbling. I remember crying when Charlie returned to his original self (spoiler: Charlie was a character whose intelligence was heightened after participating in a science experiment, but his intelligent persona became callous and cold. Ultimately, the study proved unsustainable and Charlie returned to his original state).

I asked my father if he felt as though he’d become callous and cold when he felt his extreme intelligence and awareness, like Charlie, but he assured me he hadn’t. His state was one that sounded more like a teaser of what many self-help and spiritual leaders call enlightenment. So naturally, I wanted to know more. How could I achieve this? What’s the formula? What was he doing, wearing, consuming?

My father said that it “just happened.” But that answer wasn’t good enough for me.

The human brain is a delicate and strange thing. As is the human body. It’s a miracle of a machine, and yet so vulnerable. As I think about the potential of AI taking so much extraneous processing out of the equation of thought (or at least necessary thought), I wonder if states of clarity will be more or less accessible. Perhaps someone at the hospital had spiked my father’s hashish with a mild hallucinogen that week (sorry, Dad), or perhaps he has an allergen that he only managed to avoid that one week of his life. Or maybe he truly got a taste of enlightenment.

Whatever it was, no matter how many questions I asked, I couldn’t get him to give me a formula, so I have none to offer you, but while my father used the words “aware” and “clear,” he never said he’d sought that state. In fact, he hadn’t mentioned any emotions during that time. There was no “gotcha!” feeling, or extreme relief.

Imagine what pure clarity, if only for a day, might mean. I like to think it would mean great relief. No “Why am I here?” questions. While I contribute to the world of personal development in all my work (arguably), I do think there’s an argument for pausing the search for enlightenment (or even just clarity), just for today. Just like there’s an argument for easing off the quest for perfection in writing or any craft.

Accepting fully our foibles and limitations as individual humans on this planet is a radical thing. But maybe pausing the search will also allow us to remember that if something like total clarity arrives in our lives, it’s highly unlikely it will have happened because we sought it out. It’s the search, after all, that may keep us from seeing and feeling our potential as humans.   

I’m writing a blog right now about the writing and publishing industry in active response to many things that have happened over the last few weeks. This blog will come out about the same time as my book, and whew do I have a lot to say.