Betting the Hair

I was just exclaiming about how I should go bold one morning when I opened the newspaper only to find a cornerside headline, ‘Studies show haircuts taken over a course of two years prolong life by 7%.’ 

“That’s interesting,” said Mr Right. “I read another report and the statistics said haircuts prolong one’s life by 8% after one year just the other day. So which is it, 7 or 8?”

“Whatever the case,” I remarked, “you have to be sure that something is amiss by the sheer statistics of studies conducted and reports printed.”

“Yes,” started Mr Right. “Such articles and reports are sometimes found wholesale in local newspapers, lifestyle magazines and occasionally, the scientific periodical. They keep the scientists busy, the journalists productive, the editors happy, the owners rich, the subjects poor and the public misinformed. Regardless, there are some articles that genuinely attempt to convey the right information.”

“I get what you mean,” said I, remembering. “For example, there was a good piece by a popular columnist who mentioned how it is often a nightmare for certain folks – the young, the young at-heart, the young-at-mind and the stylish – to have even one haircut in the first place. They go into the barbershop looking good, almost certain they will come out having lost most of their certainty. This is in part because the barbers refuse to listen to instructions and so the customers never know how to communicate the way they want to look.”

Mr Right continued, “As a result, they don’t know how they will look until they open their eyes after their hair is mercilessly chopped off in a way that can only be described as ‘utmost barberic’; knowledge passed down through rough times in families when father and son were at each other with scissors.”

“Indeed, that might actually disprove the theory that haircuts extend one’s lifetime. It surely cannot when the barberee suffers so much stress,” I added.

“As a result of which the hair might fall off by itself, anyway,” Mr Right grinned. 

“It might be the hairiest paradox to say that the boldness of a man lies in being bold enough to grow some hair, only to be unfashionably balded again.”

I thought and said, “Yes, that’s true. Do you think barbers know anything about this? Might they claim against these hair-raising accusations?”

“Perhaps. Statistically, few of the barbers from foreign lands ever read the newspaper. They might, however, if such shambled practices are truly not an extension of their hair,” Mr Right said importantly.

“They really sound like a bare-headed lot. What are the numbers for those who do read the newspaper?”

“I don’t know, but let’s go ask a magazine journalist to see if he would dare to bet his hair with a barber on the issue of these statistics…”

hsn

Image credits: freedigitalphotos.net / Phaitoon

I Believe

I believe in a world where ten people don't have to be poor because one is rich. I believe in a world where goodness can overcome the awkwardness of evil and where affinity will replace domination and harsh command. I believe in a world where every human being exerts themselves to the maximum, because they have the reason to, because they believe in a purpose, and because they have been provided the resources to commit to it fully rather than be distracted by the energy-sapping facets of poverty, greed, disability, powerlessness and unchivalric attitude of the controlling few.

I believe in a world where belief prevails and union is the soul of discussion. I believe in a world where the common interest is widespread and where the musings of selfishness are curbed, and converted or eliminated. I believe in a world where two nations bordering each other are not on opposing corners of the universe and where those who are, are so purely because of physical distance and not any lack of outreaching ability or effort.

I believe in a world where the rulers will sit together on carpets of tar in-front of the teeming millions of inhabitants and the city dwellers who make up a hundred and one percent of a civil society. I believe in a world where they will talk openly about what has been done and what has to be done and what the people who will be affected by these think about it. I believe in a world where the people will be selfless enough to not drive the agenda and their needs only and actually perpetuate a form of action that will imbibe fairness into every grain of sand, every crystal of salt, every tear-shaped drop of water, every weathered and cut line in the flesh of human beings and animals.

As intelligent beings our primary function is to use this intelligence for the progress of mankind and his environment; socially, economically, spiritually. So the question to pose is, is it natural that we tend to differ on aspects of existence down to the very last minitae due to unhindered thought processes, vastly contrasting living circumstances and methods of personality development? Or is it a paradox because we have just one supreme goal in common and thus our lives should theoretically be engineered such as to promote the smooth flow of man's direction toward it?

Until I have the answers to these questions and more, I'm pretty sure my world is just a belief. But then again, maybe, maybe - that is our starting point. Belief.

hsn

All over the world

Money rings
Cash tills
Millionaires
All over the world

Sweat drops
Back-to-waist
Construction worker
All over the world

People think
Give or not
Inaction
All over the world

Child dies
Poverty
Laid to rest
All over the world

Friends party
All you can waste
Twenty bucks
All over the world

Mother cries
Nothing to give
Ashamed
All over the world

Cat purrs
On carpet
Just fed
All over the world

Man sleeps
Pavement pillow
Today's home
All over the world

Man flies
Two wings
Holiday
All over the world

Man flees
Two legs
Bombing
All over the world

Boy feels
Writes poem
Forgets
All over the world...

Image credits: xedos4 / freedigitalphotos.net

The Defeatist Attitude

The defeatist attitude hovers around one like a vulture, hoping to swoop in and pick up the remains of a wounded ego. It encircles a soul bubbling with frustration, telling it in a deceivingly soothing tone, that giving up is the best choice, it’s the right option, a man has to do what a man has to do and so on. 

The skin vibrates and the brain keeps expanding and contracting in a break-point throb. Finally, the human volcano ruptures, pushing one into a state of paroxysmal rage, heart beating wildly with impatience, until agitated motor neurons wrap the fingers around an object, wanting to fling it onto the glass table in the room corner, imaginatively fully destroying both and not doing a bit to relax the impulse that has grown irritated of dormancy.
 

The anger plunders one of all rationality; thought is unbecoming and a thoughtful absorption of the consequences unwelcome. The only controlling aspect remaining now is emotion, which as it turns out, can manage to turn around its contagiously damaging ego by administering, in the human being, a feeling of guilt by which it may realize the extent to which the fingers have actually extended themselves. This new drug, which although cannot do anything to extract the anger within, can sometimes inject itself deep enough to momentarily paralyse the movements and stop the carnage.

The anger condenses from a lightening and thunder cloud into a river of denial and then comes the quid pro quo of bargaining. Its not fair. The complaints pour out. Arguments follow and the unjust words pelt the human conscious like rain on a car windshield in a midnight forest. In the foreboding darkness enough time is given for changes to occur, resulting in a thick steam that blocks everything except the guilt that is the only key to accessing the dominion of self-control.

Then slowly, just so little-by-little, true to the miraculous nature of the whole colour spectrum paying obeisance to the sunrise and floating along the rays of the morning star, the wind of clarity arrives to play its part as it blows away gently at the black ashes of the angry soul, tenderly unclothing it of the remnants of the scars of ire, caressing it with a cold breeze that drives away the hawking spirits.

Its ok if it isn't fair. I'll just have to get along with it.

And so high emotion downshifts and heads into the slow lane, content to be left behind, knowing it has been subdued. The veracity of the matter appears as white-robed hope. The bells of acceptance ring.

Maybe we can't win everything in life.
 
Maybe its impossible.
 
Maybe we might not even like to, because it'd most likely be at the expense of others.
 
Maybe sometimes we are too involved in ourselves to understand what we'd really like to have.

The raising of the hands signifies acceptance. The handshake signifies unity. The leaving signifies its all over.

In the end, its a win - over the defeatist attitude.

hsn

Sincerity

Sincerity is a drop of water;
Silent in its falling,
Pleasant when occurring,
Lost within the others.

Image credits: Phaitoon / freedigitalphotos.net