Prologue:
Freedom has become like a drug to me. The more I taste it the more I want it, need it. FREEDOM!
I wonder what I will do next to get another rush of new-found freedom?
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Ugly:
I've seen the tired, sad puffy red eyes. no make-up. late night. early morning. All with NO hair or crap stubbly black hair looking like Jim Carey from Me, Myself and Irene.
Choosing photos for fb or blackbikini I pick the flattering ones. I'm not brave enough to show reality. I like to talk about reality but to show it??
Yet I like to see my head. It feels like I can see me more. Even if it's not that way for other people and my daughter would prefer I had my hair back. I need to see me. I feel as though I freed myself when I cut off my hair and I think I am afraid to grow it back. I love how my head is just there! Nothing hiding its shape, its reality. My head exists. How strange that this knowledge means so much to me. That to see my head brings me some odd comfort!!! I think that within that comfort is a sense of defiance. It is bold and bare and real and definite. I cannot change it to suit other people, or even to suit myself. It is what it is. You can't change bald!
Of course, eventually it will grow but for now people (and I) have to face up to my hair and there isn't a damned thing anyone can do about it.
This may seem very melodramatic for HAIR! but I have been waiting for some emotional turmoil from the exercise and now I have been there. (It seems I just needed to wait for a round of pms to kick in and challenge the beauty myth!).
One friend had a strong reaction when they first saw me. They had not been prepared at all, hadn't seen any photos or read any status updates. They were shocked. Someone then asked them "But do you like it?"... I cringed, feeling the meaning of 'like'. As I thought about that moment later on I realised that it was/is not the point whether someone likes it or not. In fact I want at least some people to dislike it. I didn't shave my head to improve my attractiveness or to feel better about my exterior shell. I shaved my head in protest to all the bullshit that weighs people down. I did not/do not want to be held hostage to other peoples expectations.
Then there is the 'problem' of still being pretty. Like someone said to me today "You can't erase your face". I haven't always thought I was pretty but I have come to agree with my admirers; I have a pretty face. So no, I couldn't get truly into the world of ugly but I sure did try and I sure did feel ugly. And it was a struggle to see my own inner beauty but that was the point. I'd prefer to continue with this challenge for a while longer. I want to live without my hair and see where it takes me.
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p.s. I promise not to mention my hair in my next blog post. Yes, I am also sick of reading/talking/thinking about my hair. Next post - SLUTwalk!!!
“Be excellent to each other.” -Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure
Freedom is good. I like Engles' thoughts on it. Is the choice between the lady and the tiger more free for not knowing which door is which, or less free?
ReplyDeleteWow, you like that!? I couldn't stay focused. Which means that I also don't understand your question but i will 'ponder' it (haha) I may even pray (not likely) and get back to you. In the meantime I'd love to hear you elaborate on it? :)
ReplyDeleteHere is the key paragraph:
ReplyDeleteFreedom does not consist in any dreamt-of independence from natural laws, but in the knowledge of these laws, and in the possibility this gives of systematically making them work towards definite ends. This holds good in relation both to the laws of external nature and to those which govern the bodily and mental existence of men themselves — two classes of laws which we can separate from each other at most only in thought but not in reality. Freedom of the will therefore means nothing but the capacity to make decisions with knowledge of the subject. Therefore the freer a man’s judgment is in relation to a definite question, the greater is the necessity with which the content of this judgment will be determined; while the uncertainty, founded on ignorance, which seems to make an arbitrary choice among many different and conflicting possible decisions, shows precisely by this that it is not free, that it is controlled by the very object it should itself control. Freedom therefore consists in the control over ourselves and over external nature, a control founded on knowledge of natural necessity; it is therefore necessarily a product of historical development.
Here is the story of the lady and the tiger.
ReplyDeleteThe paragraph you have posted speaks to me about the knowledge that I feel I gained as a result of questioning and leaving the church. As well as giving myself permission to reject ignorance as a way of maintaining faith and instead to value reason and logic. (Which makes me think of Spok! whilst I now wish to employ critical thinking to all discussions/thoughts my family can tell you that I certainly still let emotion guide me, probably more than is healthy!).
ReplyDeleteWhen you have very little information you have to make guesses about what to do and that does not sound much like freedom to me. I am in the middle of a debate about the church's stance on homosexuality and it is frustrating me no end that there are TBMs encouraging their friend to deny their sexuality based on a 'best understanding' of the will of god. There is no knowledge there only blind faith in the proclamations of an elderly Patriarchal ruling body. Yuk!
I will read the lady and the tiger tonight :) it looks familiar ... I think I may have heard it at church sometime :P