Live well, age well, go bald well

 “Live well, age well, go bald well, and die after me. And... if you can, die smiling.” - Tite Kubo

So I did something new today and shaved my head. Totally bald. I did it for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I wanted to mark this first day of the latest stage of my journey with a new and clear physical sign. As I shed my old hair, I pictured all the baggage and garbage and unhealthy habits of the past several years falling away, leaving a fresh place to plant the seeds of a new garden of good habits and revitalized relationships. (Okay, so I can’t write this, let alone read it, without cringing and laughing as it sounds so pretentious! Fair enough, then, I am pretentious, but at least I’m having fun with it. And you, dear nonexistent reader, would have the choice to not read this blog if you actually did exist.)


But I also did it to remind myself of the need for humility and to watch out for vanity and pride. But as soon as I had done it, I realized that there is a danger of an anti-vanity, into which pride can still slyly creep. This is the pride that comes when one feels one has done such a good job of not caring about their physical appearance and develops a sense of satisfaction about that. It is insidious. In the end, it seems that neither having a full head of lush hair nor being completely bald will aid in the growth of humility or avoiding pride. Pride sneaks in regardless, so how we look is irrelevant. This is a big insight for me, though I am probably expressing it poorly, and it is probably also so basic and fundamental that anyone stumbling in on this page would have already known it. Call me a slow learner.


But anyway, really, I just wanted to do something new and different for me. That’s all.



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