It was and is suave for certain folks to be bald, yesterday and today; yet, there’s no reason why the idea cannot ‘work’ for tomorrow too. It is a simple equation really — with no sweat. It does not call for ‘plumbing’ your grey cells — or, the other way around. This is primarily because you don’t love, or hate, a dwindling hairline, or you may think that you just don’t belong to it, although you still do. You know it, don’t you? It is, therefore, time you stopped troubling yourself and began thanking nature for your bald pate. Either way, it is trumps for you, even when you don’t really fancy the bald ‘retreat’ on your head. You know it, again, don’t you — what is inevitable has to be endured.
My bald pate, for instance, is my own web — the bare, fully minimalistic roseate revelation, or ‘less baggage on the scalp’ for life. It’s also my own fashion statement. It is, therefore, but natural that some of my friends, who are in the process of applying for their own ‘bald patents,’ subscribe wholeheartedly to the view. This is largely because they can’t do anything better. They just can’t hop out of the system and say no to such a bald deal — or, one inescapable part of their genetic graph. All the same, they are certain of one thing — that being bald is, after all, a wonderful feeling.
There’s this piece in the German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist and statesman Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Faust, about a character named the Bachelor who makes a feast of fun on the devil Mephistopheles’s bald pate. He says, “Your bald head is worth nothing more than those empty ones there.” Mephistopheles’s response is predictable, “Don’t you understand how rude you are?” just as much as the Bachelor’s riposte, “When one is polite in German, one lies.” This may well be applied to any language, or culture, with regard to baldness — the difference being of degree.
This is all pep talk, really. Well, as for individuals who have not yet decided which way to go, they have got to stop playing the good, old game in front of the mirror. They should not fret, or frown. If they do, they’d lose more hair than they may have lost till now. Better still, they ought to return to their ‘roots’ — not in their hair, but mind. Things will slowly begin to look up for their own good, sooner than later. As the American singer-songwriter, composer and pianist Billy Joel purportedly said, “Going bald isn’t about losing your hair, it’s about getting more head.” Or, as Larry David, the American comedian, writer, actor, director, and television producer, quipped, “Anyone can be confident with a full head of hair. But a confident bald man — there’s your diamond in the rough.”
It is a paradox too. Yet, I wouldn’t really know why some women, as popular opinion would have it, find bald guys attractive. There are a handful of evidence-based studies that elevate the idea too, albeit I suspect that they may smack of a definitive, also quantified sales pitch to taking the bourgeoning ‘thesis’ to its next level. Maybe, it is time you asked someone who really thinks so, or knows a good deal about ‘baldology,’ not the much-touted world of trichology, the study of baldness, its effects on the ‘thin on top’ individual and treatment — unless it is a case of a hair transplant procedure in specialist hands.
To look at the whole visage differently, there’s good news too for bald men — that less hair suggests that you are more intelligent, successful, and machismo. In a study published in Social Psychological and Personality Science, Frank Muscarella, PhD, professor of psychology and department chair, at Barry University, US, asked participants to evaluate men on their professed uprightness, intelligence, and social standing. The result suggested that while baldness reduced a man’s apparent physical appeal, it raised their overall prestige. As Muscarella observed — male pattern baldness evolved as a placation signal; it also signalled benign, non-threatening dominance. He added, “There is a large body of literature that shows that although women like physically attractive men, they are also equally attracted to signs of high social dominance.” His finding is backed by a study conducted at the University of Pennsylvania, US, which found bald men to being more dominant and successful. This study also observed that “Men with shaved heads fare better economically in negotiations.” Yet another study at the University of Saarland, Germany, found that bald men tend to be seen by women as more intelligent and wise. However, there is a ‘catch.’ You have to be totally bald for the insight to apply — because, men with bald spots, or pattern baldness, are often perceived to be weak.
So, here we go. Just picture this — the trichologist’s hard sell. That hair loss can ruin one’s career; also marriage. That bald guys don’t get jobs, or promotions on time. That hair loss damages one’s self-confidence. That people with lush hair — not someone who sports a clumsy wig and looks like a clown — are more confident than folks with a receding hairline. Yet, whatever there is to it, I would not be impressed, because baldness is no ‘killer-disease,’ unlike high blood pressure, diabetes, or cancer. Besides, the fact simply is trichology is too nascent to stop a balding hairline, with medicines and potions alone, especially for people who take it more or less on face value. This is also the one big question for now and beyond, unless someone proves, or disproves, that every ‘hair paradise lost’ is a ‘glossy paradise regained,’ or vice versa, and wins the Nobel Prize.
Baldness is, doubtless, a great gift — a memento of nature that allows you to make the best use of it, even when you don’t want, or wish, to. What’s more, it makes you look, or sound, like a scholar, albeit you may not be one. It also makes people respect you, and for all the wrong reasons. Not only that. Ask any hairdresser — they will sure love a baldy. Not because you pay them more for doing less, but for really doing a skilful job with ‘selective’ finesse. They, doubtless, know the vestige hair to be precisely cut, or left behind for another day.
While I certainly agree that most people don’t accept a receding headline with a philosophical bent of mind, there may be a few exceptions. To be honest, I’ve always liked my shiny pate. Maybe, I’d no choice. I grew up thinking that baldness was and is the ‘art’ and parcel of life. A gift of god. So, I bought the premature slaphead genetic ticket to glory without ado. And, now, I’m delighted for it. The inference is simple. Grass never grows on a busy thoroughfare. So, who needs hair, or the much-hyped, ‘tress-packed’ hoopla of a quick-witted trichologist that laughs their way to the bank at someone else’s ‘lack of so-called self-esteem,’ or expense?
— First published in Madras Courier
