The Roots Of Truth

The late twentieth century gave birth to the phenomenon of the bad hair day. On this day your hair is not as nicely done as it could be and consequently you are less confident, less consistent, more accident prone and more irritable than usual. It applies primarily to women but the explosion in the personal grooming industry for men has now left the male of the species vulnerable to the same condition.

There is an interesting parallel here with the biblical story of Samson. Like those affected by bad hair days his strength lay in his hair. Cut his hair and he was left only as strong as a mere mortal. Clearly there is a cross cultural appreciation that hair is the source of some mysterious power. Look after our hair and our hair will look after us. We simply need to know what the optimum condition of hair is to live a happy and productive life.

No one has ever spelt out what this optimum hair condition is. But the purposes of different types of shampoo should give us a clue. First of all hair should not be greasy. Why is this? Most things are made more efficient by the application of a little grease as with pistons and parking attendants. Hair however needs to be clean and clear. This implies that hair has a natural level of athleticism which the rest of the body is unable to match. Watch sportsmen in action and oil and grease are applied to them to improve their physical abilities. Hair is merely encumbered by these. If hair had legs it would win any race against a human and hair racing remains one of the few unexploited areas of the sports entertainment industry which brought us fixed wrestling matches and interminable games of squash with a ball you cannot see.

Hair also needs to shine naturally. For certain functional things the ability to shine is an advantage. Cats' Eyes which did not shine would not help the motorist much. In most contexts however it is a disadvantage as your lustre makes you an easy target. When you draw attention to yourself you always have to be better than everyone else to justify shining more than them. If you are not you are the first one to go under. Hair is therefore invincible. It can shine as much as it likes without ever being toppled. How we would all love to do this! Once again hair is superior to the rest of the human being. Without external stimulus it has all the innate quality to stand out permanently no matter what attempts are made to knock it down much as the punchball is an infinitely more difficult opponent than an actual boxer for the champion pugilist.

What else must hair be? It must have its colour. The irrational fear of going grey is present in every culture as if coloured hair alone grants moral standing to an individual. It must have body rather than being dry and wispy. It should have the physique to stand up to the rigours of daily life despite being invincible due to its natural humility and our recognition that there is no virtue without an equal level of humility about the same virtue. Most of all it must remain in place. Receding hair equates to receding wisdom. As M.P. Mark Oaten has recently discovered people lose their sense of self and purpose when their hair deserts them. The hair which is superior to themselves leaves them with no need of excuses or apologies and when it is gone people need to justify their actions more. Maybe this is why people become less sensitive as they get older in compensation. With this incontrovertible mass on top of their heads people can do anything but that makes it all the more important to keep it in the best possible condition. If everyone can do anything the smallest advantage can create vast differences in achievement which is why the bad hair day is much more important than simply a temporary lapse in the standards people usually reach.

The context in which bad hair days are most dreaded is the workplace. Obviously this is because people do not wish to let themselves and their employers down by not being as good as those around them. There are plenty of people with better hair just waiting in the wings. But the significance runs much deeper than that. As we have seen good hair is superior to good people. If the full potential of hair is tapped there will be no more need for people to do anything as hair will take over all work and all government. But people are too jealous of their own reputations to make that alteration. They still think that because their hair belongs to them they should provide for the hair not the other way round. If we accepted that we do in fact belong to our hair our lives would be far better. It is our deep seated recognition that this is in fact the case which makes us desperate to work so hard and achieve things. No wonder our hair leaves us as we get older. By knowing us as long as it has it has learnt that it is better off on its own. Hair loss really is a condemnation by our hair of ourselves. Our only comfort is that being human we will always find something else to exploit instead of being happy in the service of a higher power.