Another shiny marble in my collection of thoughts is an insight shared with me by my friend, a philosophy student. At a psychology lecture, the professor was speaking about personality models. Turning attention to the Big 5, the professor commented on openness to new experience, stating that this trait is usually heavily pronounced in the political extremists of any belief. I guess that's why I often find a bunch of 'em in experimental music fanbases. On a second thought, I'm not even sure of this claim. I feel like once upon a time I stumbled upon some such occurences, and my brain just distilled them to this conclusion, wiping out the original data - that's induction, right?
Anyway, my liking of this thought's glimmer spread out onto the whole concept of this personality trait - Openness To New Experience. I think I identify myself with it quite a lot. And I take some pride in that. I mean, it brings me hope. I didn't start out in this world from a very good place, lots of things could use change. This trait really comes in handy. As long as I believe I can change, there's nothing to be afraid. No sufferring so permanent and vast I should lose myself in tears.
It often seems to me that the rest of the world is not so playful. I let my hair grow dreadlocks, because why not. I'm on this planet, and I have hair, why not see how it is. One day, I'm gonna shave it all off, too! See how that one is, to touch my bare, bald head.
They look terrible. Personally, I love them, I enjoy weird stuff, but they're forming naturally in my straight hair, only toward the end I hook 'em up with a tiny crochet hook. But they're messy, and I can feel it in the street that they, indeed, look terrible.
Art students love 'em, but I study science. My social circles require me to look more decent. This country isn't exactly filled with free-spirited people experimenting with self-expression, though I'm eternally grateful for my city. Any other place in this conutry, my hairstyle would potentially be a social suicide.
I can't help the way it amplifies my social anxiety in certain situations. You might ask: "Why go through with it, then?"
First of all, I didn't know how this would turn out, second, I won't be stopped from doing something just because I'm afraid. If I feel like doing it, I'm gonna do it and be done with it. Don't have to do it ever again. But I think I would forever want some things that might not even be for me, if I had never gave them a shot.
The point is, they gave me some perspective. There are people that I see taking it too seriously. My mum couldn't stop crying about them, only later she explained to me that her actual issue is that she couldn't imagine that they are, indeed, clean (that took only a year and some months). It makes it more difficult to get a job you're qualified for, which makes me quite happy I did 'em now, and not later on, when the career becomes the focus of my professional life.
Then again, some people find them lovely, they want to touch them and all. Maybe for some, it's a reminder of all of the out-of-box things they would like to do, but resist.
Most of it is in my head, anyway.
It feels superficial taking about my hair like this. Like, why do I care so much? Aren't there better things to focus on right now?
I feel this criticism, together with the whole cocktail of emotions described above, is just the internalized scrutiny I grew up with. I care about self-expression and I care about how people see me and I find this to make me less-than. These are the conclusions I got from the dreadlock experiment so far. When I lay it out in front of me, my reason is perfectly capable of letting me know how silly this is, as this doesn't interfere with me caring about the "bigger issues" and it doesn't hurt anybody. Usually, I don't give myself such grace.

In light of my today's writing, I challenge you to challenge yourself with something. It might be to wear high heels for an afternoon walk, to strike up a conversation with a stranger (that's the actual way I met my current partner, and no, it wasn't creepy, we were genuinely friends for some time at first), or just to not stare at your phone while you poop. Just one time. Just five minutes. Just to see what happens. Maybe nothing. After that, you can go back to your old, preferred, comfortable ways. But play a little. Maybe you like it.