I think most people of the Today Generation don’t realize this, but once upon a time, back in the 1960s and 1970s, if a man had long hair, even a little bit long, he would receive a lot of backlash. People would drive by and scream things at them, you would not be served in some restaurants, and the list goes on from there. In my years as a teenager, for the most part, you couldn’t even get a job if you had long hair. If your hair was even a little bit long, a man would encounter problems. I know I did.
 
Even in the great song by the Beasty Boys, Fight for Your Right to Party, “I’ll kick you out of this house if you don’t cut that hair!”
 
In the world of today, long hair, short hair, no one really thinks twice about it. People are just who they are. But, that is now, not then.
 
Back when I was coming up, it was actually a thing if your parents would let you grow your hair long.
 
To tell you a story… A story about how fucked up my mother was. About midway through the eight grade, my hair had gotten fairly long. It was resting on my shoulders. My mother wanted me to cut it. “No.” She demanded I cut it. “No.” Apparently, with her sister in tow, (my aunt), when I was sleeping one night, they just hacked it off. I woke up to hair all over my bed and pillow. I was obviously very upset.
 
I guess I never really slept very soundly after that. If you can’t trust your own mother… But, after that, I did not even trim my hair for the next seven years.
 
The thing was, back then, not as today, a man with long hair was a symbol of the counterculture. You were a part of something. You represented something. You were painting a picture of who you were and what you stood for.
 
The fact is, even when I got into the film game, at the ripe old age of thirty-two, my agents would tell me that I MUST cut my hair if I wanted to really take off in the game. …If I wanted to be cast in mainstream roles. I guess I didn’t. Maybe that was my mistake?
 
The point to all this being is… We create who we want to be and become. We create how we wish to be viewed by others. For many/most, this is a very subtle thing, and the majority of people try, without really thinking about it, to blend into whatever is accepted as the norm. And, that’s fine, that’s life.
 
But, how much time do you really spend creating how you wish to be viewed by the world? And, perhaps more importantly, how elaborate is your creation of you? Are you sublet? Do you blend in? Or, do you want to be noticed?
 
Life is both a complex and a very subtle thing. Most people never truly define who they are or what they are to become based upon what they project to the world. Do you? Truly, how much time do you—how much time have put into the creation of yourself? What do you represent and why? Why do you dress as you do. Why do you wear your hair as you do?
 
The fact is, life is really a costume party. What character are you playing?