LONG WHITE BEARDS...

...they'll grow on you

 

Yes, say goodbye to the tiresome, time-consuming daily ritual of SHAVING.

Do away with lather, blunt blades, blood...

Save energy & precious resources with the all-natural look.

       Join the LONG BEARD Club today!

 

It's a commonly held belief that In the Beginning (or was it Once Upon a Time), God had a Long White Beard. Theologians may split hairs but most are in basic agreement. No less an authority than Britney Spears recently stated: 'an old man with a long white beard...that's God.' (Indeed, to this day, some of His die-hard Greek & Russian Orthodox priests persist in wearing beards, some quite long & also white.)

Of  course, that was in the Good Old Days, before He shaved it off, after creating the cutthroat razor. And He said 'let there be Gillette.'

Hot on the heels of God, in the Judeo-Christian tradition at any rate, comes MOSES. 'Thou shalt wear facial hair' never quite made it into the Top Ten Commandments but it was a pretty close shave (or rather wasn't.)

Lao-Tzu, venerable Chinese Sage (& veritable Onion), author of Taoist 'Bible', the 'Tao Te Ching' (brother of the famous 'I Ching'), was probably well-endowed with facial hair. Though no known contemporary likeness of him exists, this indentikit impression may not be too wide of the mark.

 

Other Taoist 'Immortals' tended to have Long White Beards too - they had plenty of time to grow them.

Leonardo da Vinci, the original Renaissance Man (tho some now suspect he was a closet hermaphrodite & the Mona Lisa was a self-portrait) rivalled God (see above) in both creativity & beard-length (could there be a correlation?)

Charles Darwin proved God (see above) didn't exist. Nonetheless, out of respect, he still wore a beard, which over the course of many years evolved into a long white one. He was famously caricatured as a monkey, from which he claimed we are all descended, but that's another story.

Remaining clean-shaven may be an attempt by modern men to dissociate themselves from hairier ancestors. But, actually, where's the shame in being related to the Primates?

 

 

 

Marx, Karl or 'Curl' as he was affectionately known to his friends on account of his perm. Political philosopher, father of modern communism & brother of the more famous Groucho (who only had a painted-on moustache).

 

 

 

 

Peter Kropotkin, whom I've heard amusingly referred to as "the Anarchist formerly known as Prince," was another bushy, white- bearded political writer: The Conquest of Bread, Mutual Aid (A Factor of Evolution)

 

Tolstoy devoted his life to growing a Long White Beard. In his spare time he wrote some long books as well (eg 'War & Peace')

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nor is he the only writer to eschew the safety razor:

 

Walt Whitman's Whiskers deserve special mention & pride of place in the pantheon of the hirsute.

George Bernard Shaw, Irish playwright, socialist & vegetarian, best-known for his Long White Beard & the rough draft of My Fair Lady.

 

 

The list could go on & on...

Last but not least must be perhaps the best-known & most popular exemplar, Father Christmas.

Santa, the universally recognized Long White Beardy, like God, doesn't in fact exist, but don't tell that to the children. He may well be an hallucination caused by eating that notorious red & white mushroom beloved of Lapland flying reindeer shamen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ENCORE?

There are those who argue for a Female Deity, but that in itself is no bar to the Divine Beard. Haven't you heard of the Bearded Lady?

Others, still more ingeniously, point out that God is only DOG spelt backwards (this becomes obvious if you eat those notorious red & white mushrooms) & there are canine breeds with the telltale LWB.

PS - It is the author's ambition to have a Long White Beard when he finally grows up.

PPS - Apologies for omitting Merlin, Gandalf & Old Father Time etc...

(& presumably Methuselah who was no spring chicken!)

NB This long white page is still growing & may soon need a trim...

As opposed to traditional societies where elders are revered, the 'modern world' is obsessed with Youth. So the appearance of aging must be kept at bay by any means possible & at all costs - hair dye, cosmetic surgery, collagen injections, botox, whatever it takes - to give the illusion of youthfulness. This quest for eternal youth (in men, the Peter Pan syndrome) is of course good for business. Also highly profitable is the sale of grooming products (razors, pre & after shave) for that clean-shaven look. The ideal promulgated in adverts & glossy magazines is a man without facial hair - essentially a pre-pubescent. This is what adult men are expected to aspire to in our society. We are encouraged never to grow up. After all we are 'civilised'. Only barbarians wear facial hair. A beard is interpreted as wild, animal. We prefer the smooth & tame. By this reckoning, beards are subversive, almost anti law & order (like letting the grass grow long instead of maintaining a manicured lawn). 'Fitting in' demands conformity, uniformity even, not the anarchic individuality of unchecked facial hair. But a beard makes you look old. Yes & why should one fight it? Aging is a natural process. Here, a distinction must be made between youth & health. It is possible to be old & healthy. Clean-shaven, the skin on your chin might be as smooth as a baby's bottom but the bottom line is: the daily shaving ritual is time-consuming, costs money & wastes resources (disposable razors, shaving soap etc). For the men & hormonally-disrupted women among us, maybe you don't like beards now but, unless you perversely continue to scrape your faces with dangerously sharp metal blades, they may well grow on you. Given time, yours too might get long & white...

Growing a beard is like having a dog - you can stroke it & scratch it. I think I will take my beard for a walk. Feed it. Teach it to do tricks... I hope it doesn't get fleas or ticks.                                   my pet polar bear(d)   see how it grows... Longer...   B(e)ard (January 2011)

&   L o n g e r          (January 2013)

Goatee? Tee hee hee (February 2015)

Long BLACK beard (Yrs Truly in more hirsute days!) Bearded Wonder (ditto) Beard Bard Bird Literary Links Raving Reporter Files