Hair's My Philosophy--The Barbershop Brings Out The Philosopher In Me

It all started last November.  I called my barbershop to make an appointment with the person who has cut my hair for the past eight years (this despite the fact that I have relayed some of the critiques offered by my dear wife of her work, once relaying the comment that my wife told me I looked like a "cone head" after one of her early efforts).  I was advised that my barber was on a "personal leave of absence," and her return was uncertain.  I accepted an appointment with her sister, and heard the same explanation being offered when people called in while I was there getting my haircut.  Her sister had no comment, but my wife liked her work even less than she had her sister's early work, so I was in trouble. As I looked at it, I decided my new (temporary) barber would need some training, or I needed to find my old one.  The next time I called for an appointment--once more asking for my original barber--I was advised that my former barber was no longer employed at their establishment.  In any event, at my next appointment, I finally got my barber's sister to tell me where her sister had gone--to another shop in town--and tracked down my original barber.

Calling for an appointment at her new shop, I was advised that this shop did not offer appointments and was strictly walk-in.  It had taken me years to adjust to calling ahead for appointments at a barber shop in the first place, so I was baffled.  However, I showed up, and just waited for my barber's turn and got my haircut.  Sure, I had to wait, but it didn't take all that much longer than it would have if I had made an appointment, and now I no longer had to call a day or two ahead to get my haircut scheduled.  I just needed an open-ended afternoon to do it.  I was thinking I could live with that.

Hair's My Philosophy--The Barbershop Brings Out The Philosopher In Me

With that said, I didn't get my haircut last week when I wanted it, because I had no open-ended afternoon I could spend hanging around the barber shop waiting my turn.  I had too much going on.  I soldiered on with excessively unkempt hair until today, which my spouse advised was my final deadline   I was to get my haircut or else.  That meant I left this afternoon open, and headed for the shop shortly after noon.

As I headed over there (headed was just the only word that occurred to me to use there, it had nothing whatever to do with the size of my head covered in unkempt curls), I realized I was probably in for a wait and I had nothing to read.  I had seen the selection of the shop's reading materials on my previous visit--Guns  and Ammo, Skin and Ink--Tattoos and Tradition, Field & Stream, Outdoor Life,  and Cycle World, just to name a few.  I decided to make a quick stop at the bookstore and grab a Bargain Book to pass the time.  I picked up the first book that caught my eye.  It was a book entitled Philosophy For Everyday Life.  Its first few pages caught my interest.  As luck would have it, I was first in line and my regular barber had just returned from her lunch and her chair was empty.  In short, I had no time for the book.

Ah, but after my wife marveled at how much better my hair looked now that I had my old barber back, I pulled out the book, and spent a pleasant hour or so this evening renewing my acquaintance with Socrates, Descartes, Montaigne, even Pyrrho of Elis (one of the early Sceptics).  Heck, Philosophy was on my mind--or shall I say in my head, or at the roots of my hair?  Anyway, it's all connected....in some hair-brained way, I suspect.

Whatever you think, question it once in a while.