Every three months or so I get a haircut near Central in Zurich. It’s always the same procedure. I go in before noon. Sit down. I ask one of the guys standing around – there are only a few girls – to shave my hair 6mm short (sometimes 3mm). It costs me 25 Swiss francs (Berlin, this might not be cheap for you, but it’s very cheap for you, Zurich). I leave, shaved, back to work. I don’t like hairdressers (the places, not the persons who do it, usually). I don’t like looking at mirrors while other persons are looking at the same mirrors. I probably have what Mani Matter called in a song “metaphysisches Gruseln” (metaphysic shudder). Looking into the mirror, seeing another mirror on the other side of the wall, and getting the feeling of being reflected endlessly. I hardly ever talk. Taking the words of Haruki Murakami* into a hairdresser’s place: “I am the type of person who doesn’t find it painful to be alone”. The only thing I usually ask is where my hairdresser comes from. It’s very interesting to observe the almost constant change of nationalities. In the beginning, maybe for years ago, the majority were Turkish guys shaving my head (Kurds, to be precise). Then, it was guys from the Balkans. And then suddenly, there were many Syrians (fleeing from war?). And now there are Spanish (fleeing from unemployment?). To be clear, this is no trend. Statistically speaking, I don’t have a big enough data sample to say anything profound. It’s just me sitting on a hairdresser’s chair avoiding looking at eternity. Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman used to do science by observing there own irrational everyday behaviour. Sometimes maybe sitting somewhere and asking somebody where he comes from is really enough to see the times a-changing (or just a technique to avoid das metaphysische Gruseln.)
* Haruki Murkami What I Talk about when I Talk about Running