Floating Head Syndrome

A writer's term, worth stealing for life: a story is sick when it never leaves the narrator's head — all thoughts and talk, no weather, no rooms, no bodies. The characters are floating heads, conversing in a fog.

Many lives suffer the same condition. Days lived entirely in the head: worries, plans, rehearsals, replays — while the body carries the head around like a waiter carrying a difficult customer. No taste of the meal, no feel of the walk, no weather noticed.

The head is a wonderful servant and a terrible residence. Everything in it is a representation — a picture of life, not the living. You cannot eat the menu.

The cure is sensory and immediate: name five things you can see. Feel the feet on the floor. Taste the coffee instead of reading beside it. The floating head believes it is above the body. In truth it is homeless until it comes back down into one.