Hey friends, i am from india. im really sorry if this might seem too long for some ppl out here but i really gotta share... being a student of psychology and part time musician i always knew that certain things in life are always imposed on u by virtue of conventional thinking and u tend to follow whatever thats been told without even considering alternative options that could be equally harmless n sometimes even more useful in context of your life.. to be ur teacher's pet, to be combed and groomed, to be popular among girls, to almost blindly obey what ur parents tell u without even knowing or thinking of what good its gonna do to you are just some of the 1000s of things i rememberthati was alwaysconditioned to do. in turnwhilegrowing up i frequentlyencountered myselfby questions- if it really is soimportant to look, behave, and just simply act in our daily lives like how others want us to according to their predeterminedconcepts of what is universallyappropriate then what was the point of me having my own individual existence in the first place....? why arent we just clones of each other whoappear, act, behave, feel nreact to everything in an identical manner to each other? if other's opinions of how good we look matter so much to us then why do we look at ourselves in the mirrors after dressing up or before going to any function trying to judge how we are looking? why dont we just get out of the house and go on askin random people about their opinions on how are lookin?is even our looking in the mirror ourselves trying to judge if we are looking fine or bad was influenced by what people associate with being pretty or ugly...? as i said i am from india and i have been watching all these 'sadhus' n 'babajis' with long matted hair at religious holy places in our country ever since i was a kid. i always used to feel intrigued how their hair appears so much diffrent from any other set of normal hair. i used to ask my mom why doesnt she have hair like them..? lol. mom just used to ignore thinking that it wasnt something worthy of an answer.. once when i grew up a little n started havin my ownideas about life i saw a sadhu sitting alone under a tree and i thought it was time to explore what his philosophies about life were.. although wasnt sure how positively he would take my questions i was still too curious to just interact with him for atleast a couple of minutes. after having alittle introdction about myself done, i just asked him about his thoughts on 'normal' life.. although i couldnt understand most of what he said since it sounded like riddles to me (lol), i remember one of his phrases 'andar ek bela, bahar ek bela'. (its hindi) and it means something like 'a universe inside, a universe outside'.... oh yes and why do we have to be slaves of the outside when theres so much to explore and nurture within ourselves.... in the inside... we all are born with individual properties, qualities and defects and we should rather stick to it than trying to be something else and make a complete fool of ourselves. dreading was just a part ofall thesebeautiful changes that hv been taking place in my life, i decided to let my hair dread just over 5 months back after waiting for1.5 years when i just wasted my time trying to decide whether i should do it or no... but.. finally i am off on this ever so beautiful journey that has only made my thoughts about what i want in life more clear.. its been a journey of tangles, bumps n some loops but im persistent and i know they are gonna have their own individual personality just like how i have one. 
im glad i joined this site.. accidentally landed here while i was doin research on better ways of washing my hair than what i was earlier doin.. thank you all u dreadys in here and thank u SE for creating this community. i would be more than happy to get replies from all u guys over here. cheers, peace n love every one
updated by @ojas-acharya: 01/13/15 09:48:30PM
