I’ve been feeling really good about my hair recently. It’s gotten pretty long - last I checked it’s nearly down to my shoulders. On special occasions, my wife even braids it for me and I feel like a viking. Especially when coupled with a beard, my hair helps me feel more in tuned with both my own masculinity and femininity. But, there’s still a part of me that finds the whole experiment silly. Why put so much effort into personal grooming? My early attempts to grow a beard were out of sheer apathy. I didn’t shave, so the beard grew. Now, to maintain that same beard, I must oil, comb and condition lest it devolves into a tangled mess.
Role models
Growing up, there weren’t many role models sporting a beard and long hair. My dad usually sported a beard but his hair was generally short. Most other male figures in my family had closely cropped hair and at most a small mustache (if that). The one notable exception was my maverick great-uncle, creatively known as School Thatha (Thatha is grandfather in Telugu and he was the founder of a school). He rarely cut his hair and he had a great, long beard that went down past his neck. He also had style. He sported a decorated cane and stylish caps/turbans in later years.
Thankfully, I’ve got a lot of company at this point. So much of men’s style has changed since I was growing up and it’s sometimes hard to make sense of it all.
This got me thinking about growing up. How do we make sense of so much change just in one’s lifetime? With allegory of course! In the first grade, I played the crocodile in our elementary school’s reenactment of “how the elephant got its trunk”. In it, I, the crocodile, chomped and pulled on the heretofore short and stubby elephant nose until it was a big ol’ trunk. In the same vein as that fable, I’d like to present, “how the human male lost their ability to colorshift their face”.
Three skills
In the beginning, the male animals of the animal kingdom were colorful, graceful and extremely well groomed. I mean, they had to be - they had to convince a female that they were worth mating with! They had three things to learn before they were able to perform The Ritual and come of age.
First. How to decorate a stage. The Elephant learned to rip up the ground with their tusks to create a fierce landscape. The red bird of paradise had to learn to pick clean their surroundings of any green leaves so that their own feathers would shine in comparison. The mandrill had to pick only the ripest berries to create a beautiful, edible stage filled with all the colors and tastes he could find. And then there was the human. The human was tasked with the trickiest design of them all. He had to make sure their stage was set with the four natural elements so they could display mastery of the physical world. He would need to start a fire, divert water into a pool, till the earth and harness the wind to create a proper stage.
Second. How to properly groom, adorn and present oneself. The elephant needed to learn to take mud baths at just the right intervals so their skin doesn’t crack. The bird of paradise had to figure out how to groom their feathers and puff out their chest to display an emerald sheen. The mandrill had a more complicated task. Not only must he brush his fair till it retained a lustrous sheen, he also needed to learn to make his face a vibrant blue color on command. Man had the most complicated task still. Much like the mandrill, his face could turn red and blue. But there was a direct correlation to the man’s emotions that took many years of practice to learn. Only the true masters of the emotional world could feign such anger to turn their face a crimson red for one scene, only to experience the depths of sadness needed to transform a sapphire blue for the next.
Third. How to dance and perform the mating ritual of the species. The elephant had to learn to intimidate like an earthquake while remaining stoic like a mountain. The bird of paradise had to learn to flit from plant to plant, alternating from majestic to flirtatious. The mandrill had to choreograph their own piece. They would practice using their tail for elaborate acrobatic jumps and their fangs to ward off other potential suitors. And humans. Ah, humans were the most majestic of them all. For only they could perform the dance of the universe. While playing the drum, they told the story of their ancestors and descendants. The times that came before and the times that would be.
A curious discovery
Baluch was the most skilled dancer of his tribe. He was graceful, well groomed, devilishly handsome and had impeccable taste. But where he really shone, was his emotional mastery. He could go from bright red to ocean blue in the blink of an eye and the hues he was able to generate had a complexity to them no other could match. He took part in numerous Rituals and eventually grew tired of them. After spending nearly the entire day arguing with his numerous toddler children, he went to bed sad for the first time. When he woke up, he discovered that his sleeping mat had been dyed blue. He realized the extent of what he had discovered when he began playing with making imprints on different material while in various emotional states. He found the best material to imprint on was bamboo. He had struggled to teach the younger boys of the village how to properly feel and be one with their emotions but now, he could just sell them colored masks! They could all excel in the ritual and he would be rich! He began producing masks each day and selling them first to the boys of his tribe and then all the neighboring tribes. They sold like hot cakes (even though hot cakes had not yet been invented then). Baluch sold his masks for many years until he died and left the skill of making masks to his sons.
Scaling the business
His eldest son, Blonge, loved producing the masks and took care to follow the exact steps outlined by his father. This carried on for a few years and business was great. But one of the middle children, Plonge (might have been number 22, or 23... but who’s counting?) felt like they could streamline production. He was able to arrange the men into two supply lines, one for red (angry) and one for blue (sad). This way, they didn’t have to keep switching emotions and they could churn out masks more quickly.
Over time, the masks started losing their vibrancy because not everyone could be trained like their father had been. “Not to worry!” the newly minted CEO of emotion mask enterprises said, we’ll just add an extra man or two to each of the assembly lines to get the extra color. Soon, it was taking 3, 4, sometimes even 5 men to make a single mask (though they were still getting churned out at a remarkable rate). Business continued to boom and the entire family was one of the most prosperous in the world. Plonge died leaving the enterprise in great hands with his son Plim.
Regret
Plim continued to face supply issues. Skilled labor was hard to come by! So he kept recruiting younger and less trained males to man the mask pigmentation lines. Instead of 5 men, the lines sometimes need 100 men just to get a single mask the right shade of blue. One day, the supply line stopped. None of the younger boys knew how to feel their emotions enough (they were all planning on using masks) to generate the color required. And thus, the cycle ended. The Ritual was forever canceled. Grooming took a backseat. Men no longer had control over their facial color. The end.
Was there a moral to this story? Who can tell? Overall, it does seem like we’re coming full circle and men are becoming more in-tune with their emotions (and care more about grooming). But I think you can see where I’m going with all this …
Let’s use sentiment analysis and color filters in video calls to create an app that displays emotion in a more easy to read way than “tone” and “facial expressions”. This time, it won’t just be for the men! Vijay and I will discuss this in our next podcast.