The Blonde Overman

I strolled into my kitchen this morning and greeted my aunt and my dad. My dad is currently struggling to cope with the fact that I have blonde hair and I’m sure that my aunt hates it too but I think she’s trying to be kind about it. Here’s a transcript of the brief conversation that ensued.

Aunt: Good morning... Multi-colour! You are yellow and your beard is black

Me: Dad loves it haha

Dad: No. [kisses teeth] We were just rewatching your ITV interview yesterday. You were so smart: clean cut, black hair! We were so engaged with the way you presented yourself. That’s what you call attraction! And this... [Waving at my head disapprovingly] this is distraction

Aunt: And isn’t that just what they1 want? Distraction

There is something profoundly absurd about people who choose to dye their hair. I echo my father’s sentiments here that one’s natural colour is not one to depart from but one to embrace because it is tied intrinsically to who you are. It is an unavoidable part of your appearance and thus shapes identity, subtly forming the way in which you are perceived. Thus, to dye one’s hair- to strip yourself of your natural appearance- is to discard an intrinsic part of who you are. The exterior is the most apparent reflection of a person’s character and it informs others most immediately about the type of person you are. In changing the parts of the exterior that are biological- that are supposed to be unchangeable- we rebel against this then, shockingly disregarding that which we fundamentally are: we engage in conflict with the millennia of evolutionary processes that formed us perfectly and we lose a key part of our original self.

I write all of this with bleach blonde hair laughing out loud. I first dyed my hair in 2020 to the shock of everyone around me and I have been continuing to do so ever since. It was in a sudden fit of excitement that I chose to do it in lockdown. I booked my hair appointment in advance a few weeks before it first ended. I was filled with a rapturous excitement, not only to be let outside again but to explore the world anew. I had been working on music prolifically for months prior, collaborating with new friends continuously and reading without pause. I was full of bright ideas and on the cusp of these all coming to fruition in beautiful realisation. Those months of isolation had been for me like that of a master seamstress meticulously sewing the most elegant and delicate of pieces in a hazardous sweatshop. It was dismal and the gloom of social madness, loneliness and the alluring temptation of idle nihilism were all dangers of the environment but the end of lockdown signified a new freedom which I would harness boldly. I made plans to overleap the trials of this period and unleash myself fulfilingly.

This new freedom presented itself in an unshakeable sensation. It was an uplifting state. It was one in which everything I wanted was reachable, all shortcomings were were non-existent and the very sweatshop of my solitude was merely an origami house that would be lay to mush in the pouring rain of my exhilaration. I found new form in the future that awaited me and I began to imagine myself anew too. Mostly, I was the same. Mostly, nothing had changed. And yet, something quite clearly had: this feeling that I had inside of me needed to escape and I could feel it tugging at its umbilical cords the closer we came to the end of lockdown. It came to birth through me dyeing my hair: externally realised at last. Although, I didn’t think about it as profoundly at the time, I know undeniably that it was that inner feeling coming to life. The second time I dyed my hair was at the end of 2021 when I was awarded a Soho House fellowship (an achievement which has been wondrously beneficial to my career), was elected president of The Black Head Students’ Network and got hired for a new job. I was filled then with the same feeling, absolutely swallowed by an elated anxiety for all that awaited me.

It was over a year after I had dyed it for the first time that I knew to label this feeling 'delusion’. It is the most accurate depiction of this blonde truth because it absolutely refuses to concern itself with the present or a reality, and instead surrenders itself purely to overwhelming feelings. It is a force which overcomes the ever-present stumbling blocks of the human experience and it concerns itself instead with the seemingly unachievable, all-exciting promises of a bright future. This was a feeling which was all-necessary in this period where lockdown, and the cascade of misery that it harkened, were being shipped to us as the new normal and we were being presented with a seeming reality of no hope. This was a common feeling across the country. Many looked for a hope beyond their current experience elsewhere: in religion

I’m grateful for the discussion that my dad and my aunt had with me this morning because they put into words something that I’ve been struggling to this whole week. It is true that my black hair is attraction in that it is familiar, safe and normal. My black hair fits firmly into the mould of who I am supposed to be whereas my blonde hair is unnatural: its bright colour signals blossoming energy and it is undeniably a symbol of autonomy since this is something that I have done to myself, wilfully challenging my natural state to realise something that others may not understand. I am sure that my childhood plays a part in this choice too as I often think to the awe that enveloped me the first time that I saw Goku turn Super Saiyan: the grand hero of this tale overlooked the destruction of the entire Earth and the impossibility of his alien foe by transforming into a blonde haired warrior. As a child, I tried numerous times to achieve this form myself. So it is also true that the blonde is a distraction in that it looks away from the pains and woes of the human experience to look at a beautiful horizon in which all is possible.

In my search for an apt way to describe this, I revisited Nietzsche’s conception of the ‘Ubermensch’, which I enjoy reflecting upon: it is a figure who overcomes himself through challenging external repression and looks for his own truth. The Ubermensch is defined by his autonomy in the face of inescapable mundanity, which seems like an apt mirror of our time in isolation. I have been able to know this concept more this week through the music of my friend Dochi. He also posits on this ideal through song. In his latest freestyle, he translates the German Ubermensch to Overman in that it is one who overcomes his own humanity. I find this to be a beautiful summary of the concept.

Separately, I find something interesting in the way he presents the concept in his freestyle- with wondering eyes and metaphorical words. He float gracefully through abstract ideas whilst walking through the concrete estates of inner city London, the cold surely bites at his face as he recites. There is a duality to this which depicts my character too in that I love my blonde hair and I trust that my delusion is necessary, but I know there to be a healthiness in hardened reality.

The beauty in looking above at the horizons is complemented dutifully by the clarity that comes from confronting our most immediate circumstances. This might seem to lie in contradiction with everything I have stated prior but multiple truths can co-exist. The power of the Overman to realise himself is an admirable one but one that only benefits himself. One of the great realities that it ignores is that he exists within a human community and that the plights of his peers are also his. This is also the truth that I somewhat negate by tampering with the biology of my black hair: my humanity.

The dismal state of society- the hazards of the metaphorical sweatshop- do not disappear because of the Overman’s autonomy. Instead, they decay the more he refuses to address it and therefore, we have a duty to ourselves and one another to lay aside our delusion once in a while and address the problems of the world around us (i.e. loneliness, infringements upon various human rights by our government, widespread poverty). The Overman is a necessary entity, which allows us to peer into a better world whereas the mere mortal- weak and suffering from human plight- is utmost empathetic to his neighbour and therefore understands the disparities between where he is and where he wants to be. It is through finding balance between these two that we are able to fully conceptualise of a better world and it becomes possible to put an end to these issues so that we do not simply realise our own joy but realise the joy and betterment of the world around us.

In short, I will go back to black soon dad. Don’t worry.