I have had numerous haircuts, styles, beard lengths, types of beards etc. If anything the rate of significant change has increased. It has been rare for me to have particular look and maintain that image for longer than 6 months and certainly not longer than a year. My wife, similarly, has started to fluctuate hair colour with mood and season. While certainly for myself my lack of hair maintenance, is related to my distaste for maintenance of all kinds. Therefore, I usually have a beard due to disinterest in shaving rather than my love of beard. However, keeping that in mind it is also true that I rarely change "because it was time," although this will often be how I will express it if people ask why... "because it was time" is the equivalent of saying, "you are human you know that sometimes things need to happen and I may or may not be sure of why and even if I am, I am not willing to share specific reasons." I have noted in myself and others a tendency to cut, colour or in some fashion change their hair as a way to exert control over there own life. Often we are battered about by circumstance and situations, either in reality or perception, beyond our control... addressing our hair can serve a number of functions in these circumstances 1) It is a way to exert control and feel power 2) It is a way to externalize or incarnate inner feelings and life in a variety of ways...either parallel or contradictory.
I once shaved off my beard and shared a devotional Bible reading about hiding. While, I would argue primarily I am too disinterested to shave, there are other elements of both hiding and also the assertion of age and with it power that are also wrapped up in my beard. Sometimes one or both of these aspects becomes psycologically problematic and I have to shave off my beard. In another example, I cut off my spectacular shampoo commercial worthy long hair last semester (as can be seen on the About Us page). (The picture is from the summer, let me assure you that it only got better and I was literally a lion among men). Anyway, I cut it off, by myself, the day after Occupy Wall Street got raided and kicked out of Zucotti park; it was a form of lament.I also use hair cut and beard adjustment as a way of marking time. I will often shave either at the beginning or end of semester, paper, project or some other sort of season.
I had dreadlocks for a year, which effectively expressed my desire to surf and generally be a hippie. That was a good year: I got out surfing a lot and also bought a 1971 VW bus. I do not believe I have been surfing since I cut off my dreadlocks... Which I did after one day of out door manual labour, pulling up sod... Clearly I sold out to the man.So, how does your hair express who you are? what you want? what has happened or is happening? Do you make these changes with intention or reflexively?
I believe that this is very much a modern phenomena... I have nothing in particular to support that... Do you agree or disagree? What are the underlying social causes for this phenomena?
Is our hair most often an outward expression of inner reality or is it equally common that our hair creates and participates in our inner reality?
