So... What next?

09/12/2009

After three full days, I decided to shave the rest of my face and become the usual "me" again.

The encounters I had during those days were quite interesting; neither immensely diverse, nor *that* eye-opening I would say. The discussions that came out of it though were very stimulating and thought provoking. More than anything, I want to thank all of you who sent me messages supporting this and showing your interest in the outcome and the observations.

In the street, there was a number of double-takes by people who were not quite sure they had seen what they had just seen. Along those lines of course, I had the numerous, long, disturbed stares which were just too many to count.

A lot of people would chat to me for ages and chose to ignore it completely throughout our whole conversation.

Some people asked me if I had lost a bet. I found that quite amusing, especially because I hadn't thought of that as an option. :)

There were also some negative reactions, such as the one where a woman literally ran away when I tried to ask where the Hancock tower was. Most of the negative responses though (two out of the three in total that is), did not come from people in the street. They came as comments from people who follow my blog, something which means that a discussion on the subject could have been had, but nothing as direct and immediate as when face-to-face.

What I found most surprising is that a lot of people did not even notice it! With a number of people I had been chatting for quite a while and 10 minutes in the conversation (or even longer at times), they would notice that half my beard was missing! On most of those occasions, they only noticed after someone pointed it out to them, rather than realising by themselves! This last finding made me wonder whether the ones that did not react at all to it remained oblivious to the fact that I had only half my face shaved.

All in all, I wouldn't quite consider this experiment a breakthrough in my thoughts and ideals. Nor was it an unspeakable success. My primary goal was to get many opportunities to show them that the way I look does not represent the way I am. Even the most simple interaction of them asking me why am I doing this and me replying, would spark up a conversation. It would break the barrier set between two people who do not know each other. In the long run, I was hoping that this will generate a thought in their heads that says "Hey. Talking to random strangers in the streets is not so bad after all!". In other words, getting people to realise how wrong they are to judge a person before getting to know them.

Going around with half a beard was just one method I decided to use to achieve this. The face is the first thing everyone always notices, so it's a fairly drastic method. As the days were passing though, I learnt a lot by the experience and observed it's strengths and weaknesses. In general, I feel that it did not make much of a difference. I already have a fairly eccentric appearance and the fact that I had half my beard shaved did not make that much of a difference. The total impact and the number of people this experiment affected was probably no different than if I was my usual self. Which means, although this was by no means a waste of time, there are more effective ways out there to achieve what I want to achieve.

Needless to say, I did not expect to change the world within those three days. People are not used to random acts of kindness and this will not change from one day to the next. But it's a start and every person that manages to see things differently, will eventually drag one more with them and so forth. So please, next time you're in the bus, on the train, sitting alone in a cafe, waiting in line to buy tickets to a concert, walking down the street, say hello with a smile to whoever is by you. Give yourself the gift of experiencing something new. You could improve someone's day. :)

M.