Why we should all shave our heads
“Mum, I’m going to shave my hair off”. She peered at me with dead passive-agressive eyes. “Pass the curry” “Mum, hello?” “No.” “What do you mean no, it’s my head!” “You’ll cry. Trust me”.
She had approximatively the same reaction when I told her I wanted to launch a business (I didn’t). Or when I told her I wanted to bid adieu to large companies forever and focus on developing start ups.
God forbid her own daughter would dare contest what society has deemed appropriate and aspirational. See it’s a funny parallel but beauty standards and professional aspirations have a lot in common. It’s things society arbitrarily decided upon, and that we use to measure ourselves against, to value our self worth. I think this is what we’re generally getting wrong in life, but I’ll get to that.
First let me talk about hair for a second. When I was building my CV I needed nice pretty names on there. So I interned at some of the biggest companies in the world. With me, my heavy lion mane. It was always up in a bun but I had the comfort of knowing that if need be, I could let my hair down to draw attention.
When I was done, I chopped if off. And every time I needed a trim I’d go even shorter. Last Saturday, I was at the cinema and I asked the guy I was with what he thought of a certain short hairstyle I pointed to. He looked at me and asked if I didn’t want to grow it out again. I immediately looked for an appointment to cut my hair even shorter, almost out of spite.
See, long hair is like big companies. It’s comfortable, it’s standard. It’s low maintenance, but it looks so appealing and intimidating to the outside eye. When you have long hair, you’re reluctant to change because it took so much time to get there. And it hides things easily.
Short hair is like start ups, it needs more attention but it’s fun and nimble and you’re not afraid to change it because it will grow quickly. It’s a risk, and you can’t hide behind it, but it’s liberating.
The last time I sat at the hairdresser’s, pleasant banter turned out surprisingly insightful. The coiffeur said that he sometimes gets girls that come in asking to chop off their hair but they’re incredibly afraid. So he takes the hair and does his best to show what it would look like. They almost inevitably ask “Wait, hold on, show me how much you’re going to cut off”. Normal question right? Well actually no, if someone is showing you how things could be, why in the world would you ask what you’re about to loose? Why are you more worried about the hair on the floor than the hair that will actually stay on your head?
Societal standards might seem harmless, even part of the culture. But they are actually a massive frein for innovation. We’re so afraid of change and so desperate to fit in to be accepted (aka make things that scale so you can get funding), that we more often look at the hair on the floor than what we could actually look like if we tried something new.
Buddhists believe cutting hair symbolises cutting off confusion, hostility and attachment, the three poisonous attitudes. Cutting off these three eliminates the causes of our misery. It also frees us to direct our energy to cultivating equanimity, love, compassion, joy, and wisdom in our hearts. Monastics shave their heads as a way to recall the purpose of their life.
Confusion, hostility and attachement sound just about right to describe inner workings in large companies. It also sounds like societal pillars we’re too afraid too disrupt, like law or education, because people are confused about why it is the way it is, are hostile to change and are very attached to their idea of how it should be.
Well I want to try shaving off my hair. I want to try to disrupt these pilar ties. Maybe I’ll find some monks on my way who are willing to help.
