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I grew up in an extremely homogeneous area. There was a certain unspoken paradigm of behavior and belief that you either adhered to, or faced isolation. I fell in the latter category because I was more likely to hit the books than a baseball. Got bullied a lot. I never really felt close to my family, and there was always fighting.
Because of my surroundings, I never felt that I was really being true to who I really was. All my life I have felt like an outsider, because I felt and thought differently than everyone else. I have felt like a slave to the whims of complete and utter idiots for as long as I can remember.
But next year, I graduate. Not only do I head off to college, and far away from a hometown of great anxiety, but also, I will have the significant opportunity to grow my hair out as long as I'd like and become truer to who I am. In my eyes, long hair signifies the very heart of life and strength and well-being, and the potential for a beautiful future devoid of fear and loneliness.
What does long hair mean to you?
Hey Venya,
Long Hair means freedom to me. I have wanted to just let my hair grow all of my life. I have always thought that it would be cool to let my long hair just stream after me or to just let my hair blow in whatever way the wind should move it and not be concerned. I think I always admired girls who were "allowed" to have long hair because it seemed that having long hair allowed many opportunities to do more with one's hair.
Throughout my life the impression has always been imparted that women/girls have long hair and guys have short hair. However, if you look at history this has not been so. Men throughout most of history have worn their hair long; great men, free men. In fact, for a man to cut his hair was a sign of either mourning or of being enslaved and being shorn so as to constantly remind you that you are not your own master; someone else owns you.
One characteristic we long hairs share, besides our hair is this: we value self-expression. We respect it in others and we expect it for ourselves. Respect that right of self-expression in others, bro. Command it for yourself.
Raymond
Nicely said, Raymond. and I agree. Long hair, to me has always been an expression of who I am. I was among the 1st in my circle of friends to grow my hair long. This was long ago, in the latter half of the 1960s. I suffered verbal abuse and was threatened with physical harm. I and my friends who also decided to grow it out stayed with it and our hair got longer. I kept my hair long until the early 80s, then it slowly got shorter as my career grew. It did remain "long' in comparison to the norms of the day, though. Now I am a point where I can return to those roots, as it were, and let my freek (Intentional speLling, it's what we called ourselves in High School) flag fly, in the form of the long mane I sported as my earlier self.
To me long hair means freedom, being myself, and avoiding the common look I see on men all the time.
My hair is still rather short, but it still is longer than the hair on the majority of guys I see during my day. And since I started to grow mine out I have felt better about myself.
For me, my long hair is more than a style. It borders on the spiritual. I have kept my hair long since I was 16. I'm 60 now.
Back in the '60s, you would catch a lot of flack with long hair. In some areas, your life might be in danger.
It was like a flag, a sign that you don't buy into all the crap that our society lays on us. A lot of small minded people felt threatened by that, and would react in anger. Not unlike homophobia.
To me, it came to mean that I am my own man, and do not sell out to anyone, for any price.
I have paid my dues over the years. I have been harrassed, threatened, rejected for jobs, and shunned in business.
In spite of all that, I've done well.
It has all been worth it.
Mike
Noth SF Bay area
Put simply, it's who I am and who I want to be!
Freedom and self expression as others have said.
Be true to yourself, and enjoy the experience!
EMPLOYMENT! I am an actor in Hollywood. The longer my hair and beard get the more roles I get cast in.
"What does long hair mean to you?"
My belated welcome to you, Venya.
My long hair meant a lot to me, as it stood for a whole new sphere of viewing people, laws, and environment. It wasn't yet another reward for my longtime patience and maintenance, it was an insignia. An emblem of being unique and free, to put it most short. And unlike the majority of longhairs I hanged out with, I never grew it to copy someone I admired. Well, not primarily, anyway. In my spiritual realm, I was an only model and behaviour conductor, which was why I don't remember ever having envied other longhair's longer hair.
Also, never mind the others' malice. If you try to fight it, you'll lose your precious nerves and you don't need that, especially given you're only 18. I made the mistake of bothering arguing with my haters, and the costs I went through for that were numerous, from the one that my most gentle years (19-23) were ruined by hysteria that my grumbling and misanthropic family gave me, to the fact that, while I'm writing these lines - and I gather you might have recognized this already from the tone in which I wrote the above paragraph - I'm a shorthair again. I'm far from losing my hope in regrowing the mane, though, as my plans to free the motives and impulses I now must keep suppressed still aren't deadened. I'm also maturer than I was three years ago, so I can't really say I miss my long hair all that dearly, which, e.g., would be the case if I got it cut when I was 20 (I became a shorthair in July last year, when I was 23). No point in lying - short hair is definitely easier to handle, dry, comb, oil-arrange, and all... but it's not the same. It's not the feeling of being in love with my painstakingly sought, ideal version of myself , which gave my, otherwise not that joy-filled life so much philosophy and sense of inner achievement. With long hair, I was that wacky intellectual and artist who would spend hours of both grief and amazement pondering about the looks and the significance of his tresses and be proud because, in the long run, the emblem of his uniqueness and mystery is by his side, no matter what. With short hair, I'm but another generic postgraduate and busy academic worker-to-be, in line for the life of rush, obligations, and disinterested gods of society.
The point of my endless rambling: be sure to relocate and get your piece of independence, but remember: save the nerves! I.e. when the malice-spitting community around you is gone, be sure not to bear in your memory the stress they caused to you, lest you get haunted for years to come.
And lots of luck in growing your long hair! I paid a glance at your photo in your last thread - looks fine enough to me.
Nikola from Serbia
Nikola, I’m doubtlessly impressed by your lengthy and thoughtful answer.
Something that has always impressed me about Eastern Europeans is how contemplative they can be. Я говорю некоторые русском (I know a little Russian), and part of what attracted me to the culture is how intelligent you people are. Everyone in America (at least in my little slice of Hell, anyways) seems to have forgotten what it means to think.
Anyways, I am all too eager to forget the spiteful people that attempt to rule my life. After high school is over, they will be flipping hamburgers at McDonald’s and worrying about their pregnant drug-addled girlfriends while I proceed with my education.
I do hope that the desire to grow your hair stays with you, because it shows that you are not afraid to disobey pointless and emasculating social convention in order to find contentment. May you come to a point where you are free to actively seek that ideal self, for it will lead to a fantastic sense of self-fulfillment.
Thank you again for your response; I found it encouraging to hear another's story which was strikingly similar to my own. It is also rare to hear another's thoughts who sound like I had said them. I've yet another year of cutting my hair for school, but I will suffer through it with as little resentment as possible, and heed your words about letting go of it once I am free of that school.
Што се тиче,
Venya from America
I everyone! My first time posting here.....
I have a similar story, Venya. I never had a thought of growing out my hair when I was young, until the age of 13 or 14 years. Each year for our family vacation we would go up to the mountains and stay at the same motel. That year they had new owners and the owners has a teenage son not a few years older than I was... with breathtaking, flowing, red shoulder blade-length hair. I was immediately struck - for the first time in my life I wanted to grow out my hair!
I immediately met with resistance. My hair began getting curly around then (now it's just wavy, I think it just was a teenage thing), so my parents wouldn't let me grow it out with the excuse that it wouldn't look good with all of the curls.
I was still determined. By 18, their words shifted from not looking good to "As long as you live under our roof, in our house, you will get your hair cut..."
By 23, they were the ones that had moved out of my childhood house into a new one, but they held onto this one until I could buy it with my wife (who is from China). I thought I had been free of their influence, but every now-and-again they held the fact that they were making payments on the old house... in other words, held the house over my head in order for me to get a haircut. Those threats started dying off towards the last few years before we bought the house two years ago.
It's not that I have bad parents... I have really good parents! They just kept on telling me that they wanted me to look good - at least in their eyes. The strange thing is that my mom was a want-a-be hippy back in the late 60s and 70s. How time changes all things, huh? Or maybe it's sadly the more conservative part of the country that I live in???
Oh well, anyways, now I'm 30, free of my parents' influence, and I'm finally determined to go all out and grow it all out (as long as my employer allows me)! Now my wife isn't too hot on me having long hair, but I think after seven years of marriage and seven years of trying, she's finally resigned to the fact heh.
So good luck to you, Venya, and don't let anyone get you down. I'm not going to let anyone get me down any longer, either... being a longhair means freedom!
Hurrah!!!
Yoshiki,
I really hate it when folks can be so close-minded. It seems as if many people have abandoned true spirituality in lieu of psuedo-faith that seeks to fly under the flag of righteousness and crush the "impure" and truly aware. To me, long hair signifies care, dedication, and appreciation of beauty. Power is ever sought, but true joy is found through seeking the simple.
Your journey has been far longer than mine, man. I've only to wait one more year, whereas you've seemed to wait your whole life. May your wife concede to your wishes, and your hair come out as you've hoped it to, and beyond.
Good luck, man! : )
Serbia,
Great response to the topic! You a a very eloquent writer, very captivating words!
I have been a long-hair guy for three years now and most of the time I really love it. When I look in the mirror and the reflection that stares back at me makes me feels like the person I'm suppose to be...I won't lie, I sometimes feel intimidating and uncomfortable when I walk into a room of people who look the same..(If my hair is loose-then I tie it up and put a hat over it) I am getting better at feeling comfortable around people with my long hair...But for the most part I can relate to what you're saying. When I walk into a bar and my hair is down I always can get the bartender's attention first, without speaking a word hehehehehe. And, the other spectrum of having long hair is that you grab the attention of others without any extra body language. (Not that I seek the attention, in fact I'm the opposite)But as an artist I do feel that my long hair is my own expression of my own-self-I'm like a work of art in-progress...It makes me feel free-like sleeping naked or showering outdoors...Hard to explain the feeling that long hair gives me-but I know I'm liking it!
Venya-great thread very interesting topic, it exercises our creative and critical thinking muscles.
I just don't want to look like a freak if I wake up in Middle Earth some day.
Venya,
Thank you for creating this thread-you shared and summed up your whole self in a beautiful paragraph.You gave me further inspiration to continue growing my hair. I met some people the other day which I haven't seen since my hair was short...Not one person said my hair looks great-instead they said oh you look like such a hippy and one guy said "It must be so hard to maintain". But, that guy is completely BALD...I took their hippy comments as a compliment-however, I did sense a bit of jealousy from the bald-headed guy...I was the only long-haired in a group of 50 people and I said to myself when I left "Aren't you glad you don't look like anyone else?"
I hope you can continue that freedom after college. When you enter the world of jobs you may encounter a taste of high school thinking.
If you love learning I would suggest you go into higher education for a career. I have enjoyed the liberal environment of higher ed, where there is a spectrum of styles and beliefs respected by colleagues, and where you are judged on what you do, not what you look like.
Hi Guys,
It's been an interesting thread of discussion on this topic and I thought that to add my 2 cents worth.
I grew my hair long because it made me feel more whole and comfortable inside my skin. It is a strong part of my identity.
Also I enjoy the physical sensation of having hair that moves around on my head and shoulders. It's great fun to have.
I don't care for image or what others think if it is an unreasonable viewpoint. With long hair I have "outgrown" my younger short haired self.
Duncan
Its like a Marlo Thomas Album I use to listen to back when I was a boy in the 1970 's. " FREE TO YOU AND ME " . Its just hair, so let it be.
Glinka
to me it means freedom , freedom because you dont have to feel like a slave obligated to go to a barber every month for something pointless like haircut.its like people don get it no matter how many times you cut it it will continue to grow why fight it? and strength because im native american and long hair stands for strength and spirituality in our culture
It means being me. It's how I've always seen myself.