My dear boy,
I have always believed that a woman who cannot take care of her hair cannot take care of a man.
Speaking about hair, I know a hairstyle that can work wonders. I nearly married some lady because of it. This one calls upon the primal nature of the man locked away in his core. It’s a gentle tease. The bringing to the conscious the memories of man’s ancestors which are buried deep within the collective unconscious. You see it, and you exclaim, A-ha! This is the language spoken to my forebears.
Owu. It is not so much about the quality of the material or the styling. These, as a whole, are important but hold little weight in part. They unite to speak the loud volumes of innocence, the agelong motif of a damsel in distress: the one who must be kept safe from harm and, by implication, worshipped for the queen she is.
All these for a cheap hairstyle? Perhaps, this is all the proof you need to know that men will always make strong arguments for the things they like and forgive sins by those they love. Hence, if your experience is contrary, you have your answer, bearing in mind that to every rule there’s an exception. I should stop here.
My boy, I have met several women who, in an attempt to impress me, made braids, faux locs, and a host of others. I have nonetheless found that styling is an art lost to a lot of women. Styling is what can make a three-week-old braid more appealing than freshly made braids. Think of styling as the finishing touches on a building. It is the paint color, the shade of that color in the light. Should it be glossy? Coarse? Styling separates the queens.
Let’s not forget the magic-performing tool the scarf is. Boy! Invest in scarves. Buy them for your wife. And your wife should learn to tie them. See, sometimes the things that keep you coming back are not the things women focus on. The list of little things has got these on there.
Look, your old man is not new to being surrounded by beautiful women, nor is he new to having access to them. I spent four years in school with them, and I’ll tell you that there’s a downside to it. Days ago, while speaking with a close pal, it hit me that beautiful women are like wine: too much leaves you intoxicated. My class fought from the day we got admitted to the day we graduated. In retrospect, being the only set to have the most beautiful ladies explained it all.
Lecturers leaving our class with visible erections wasn’t a strange sight. My friend and I received countless threats to leave the girls alone. Forget! Our girls dey enter eye normally. Marine spirits sat under their shadows with hopes that their beauties would rub off on them. Nah! Our department building was a tourist site. Boys came to behold God showing off. Anyone not married now is busy chasing a career.
Anyway, when I read a brief history of braids, I somewhat understood why it called to my core. The primal echoes of ancestors locked within the chambers of the collective unconscious from whence my form is forged. I tell you this, that we run is proof of how clueless we are over the matter: we have but little say. Yes, all this yammering for hair? If only you knew that braids were at first maps woven on heads in hopes of finding safety! But how can you know if you are not taught? With braids, our ancestors arrived at a tool that is both functional and aesthetically pleasing: an art that has become a struggle for many in the present-day world. The minimalist movement corroborates this claim. I digress.
Anyway, encourage braids. Just braids. Wear braids, for it is a natural glow-up.
On the other hand, the idea of frontals reinforces the need for collective participation in pursuance of a society devoid of chaos, in that the beholder has to pretend to accept the make-believe baby hairs glued to the forehead of the wearer to be indeed theirs. This further points to the caricature that is human interaction: that the comedian is only as funny as we allow him to be. This is not out of place, as each society determines for itself what art is. Hence, what is true is what we accept to be true or pretend to accept to be true. As such, frontals expose how we all can seemingly gleefully participate in delusion, irrespective of our individual motivations. Do not take this to be a fruit of my bias against frontal. A careful observation vindicates me.
Enough of this pompous rhetoric. Hair is closely tied to personal hygiene. Surface-level research will suggest that hair is not “alive” in itself, and as such should hold little to no weight in our judgment of character. However, indeed, the content of our character is best tested using the litmus paper of the seemingly less important things. Perchance, this is all I wanted to say.
On the other hand, our hair reveals deeper truths about our identity, health, our age, and sometimes the vitality of our body. As Anthony Synnott notes, “Hair is perhaps the most potent symbol of individual and group identity because it is both personal and public.” To ignore it when it hints at one’s psychological disposition about their personhood is a risk far too grave. Grooming is a serious venture that boasts of such robust returns for the investments made. Find them. Make them. Learn from me.
Love,
Dad.
