I’ve been growing my hair since February, 2010. That’s almost 15 consecutive months without a haircut, which is around 450 straight days or roughly 20 bottles of conditioner and a handful of broken hair bands. For many college students, doing any one activity for that long becomes extremely difficult as classes, work and other responsibilities begin to pile up. For most men, however, the anxieties of growing one’s hair long so late in life make it a near impossible feat, a feat that is the subject of today’s flow-pinion column.

The first thing to understand about college males who embark on this journey is that they’re no longer trying to “fight the man” or bolster a career in male modeling by growing their hair out. Today, America’s young men are simply trying to achieve the perfect flow.

Although the term “flow” has its origins in athletics, it has become universal in the last few years. According to Urban Dictionary, flow can be defined as “long, curly, or wavy hair that would flow out the back of someone’s lacrosse, hockey, or football helmet and curl up around the back of it.” In my own experience, the quest to achieve this highest of male stylistic ideals comes in four distinct chapters.

Chapter 1: Origins. One dark evening, perhaps after a gnarly practice or a night of booze and excess, the gods of flow will come to you in a prophetic dream vision. They will carry Chinese spears with red horse-hair tassels and garlands of roses. They will place one upon your neck (a garland, not a spear, you idiot) and they will bestow upon you a divine quest: to grow your hair out to the perfect length – beyond short, but that you not enter the dreaded realm of overflow. They tell you they celebrate those that find the perfect middle ground and promise to seal their fates in the LiBro de Flow!

Of course, this will be an exciting time for you. You’ve been chosen by the flow gods and elected to explore uncharted territory and grow your hair out. You’ll spend additional time in the bathroom mirror pulling your hair upward and measuring it crudely with the space between your finger and thumb. Your roommate will ask you why your helmet is in the bathroom. You’ll self-consciously ask your friends and teammates how it looks and they’ll shrug uncomfortably because it looks the same as it always does. For your hair is still short, and immense challenges await you.

Chapter 2: The Awkward Stage. It’s been three months since the gods of flow came to you in your dreams and you’re beginning to understand why they cautioned you that this quest so often goes uncompleted. Your hair falls onto your forehead as if to spite your face. You can no longer roll out of bed looking put-together, for the few inches of hair you’ve acquired appears lumbering and ungainly without a shower. Your own mother insinuates you look retarded. Her words, not mine.

Women will rebuff your advances in social settings as they think to themselves, “I might have let him buy me a Cosmo and done something sexually regrettable with him if his hair were just a bit shorter or a bit longer.” The world is no longer your oyster my awkward friend, but with patience, the gods of flow will reward you for your sacrifice, for they are generous and well endowed.

Chapter 3: Flowfection. Your hard work and determination doing absolutely nothing other than watching your hair grow is beginning to pay dividends. Lacrosse season is here and the hair triumphantly exiting the back of your helmet has given you an unmatched confidence, quickly turning what would’ve been a 30-point season into a 50-point one.

Your performance on the field has gained the favor of the women who once rebuked you, but you can’t be bothered with their advances. You’re in the good graces of your professors and you can finally flip your hair at the Rec Pool. You will stand on the diving board to see the gods of flow on the grass, giving you a slow clap. You will then execute a swan dive.

Chapter 4: “You need a haircut.” This is what your best friend will say to you. With these words, the quest for flow will end with success. His suggestion will shake you at your very foundation because you’ve lived this dream for more than a year, but now, you’re beginning to overflow, and the flow gods warned you about that.

JOSH ROTTMAN is as JOSH ROTTMAN does. He can be reached at jjrottman@ucdavis.edu.

This Monday the lives of New Yorkers were changed forever with a mind-infiltrating advertising scheme that is sure to revolutionize the industry. No longer will that twenty-something college student question spending that extra dollar. The New York Lottery is here to tell them that they better “Be ready. Good things happen in an instant.”

It only takes an instant to become voluntarily unemployed. An instant to fly to D.C. and buy the Smithsonian. An instant to rent a room in Cinderella’s castle.

But if it really only takes an instant for great things to happen, why do we spend so much time in lines? Why do we have to wait a week to find out we aced our midterms?

As an NPR writer beautifully articulated: “Where does one go, in this time of instant oatmeal, instant messaging and instant gratification, to find the time and solitude to fully ponder…’deep’ questions. Academia? We think not. The monastery? We doubt it. The asylum? Maybe.”

We believe in instant gratification. We believe in drive-thrus, overnight delivery and “On Demand” television. We expect the world to go according to our schedule, granting us the time to do whatever our planner says, and ensuring that we avoid all series of unfortunate events.

We’d rather assume that our teachers will have answers for every question and that our roommate will pay the rent right away than envision the possibility of having to improvise. To assume that things will occur “instantly” is to disregard the massive hoard of reliability that is present in our own memories.

A recent study published in California Physics found that we force our brains to consume three times as much information as people did 40 years ago. This extraneous consumption is said to reduce our capacity for long-term memory and can even weaken our creative juices.

In his book Moonwalking With Einstein, Joshua Foer, the 2006 United States Memory champion, discusses the history of memory.

Foer argues how we hate on our memories far too often when we can’t remember that phone number or our supervisor’s instructions. He explains that our memories evolved at a time when remembering the route home that bypassed poisonous material was exceedingly more significant than your second cousin’s middle name. As Ed Cooke, Foer’s mentor, shared in one of his lessons, “Our memories weren’t built for the modern world.”

Most articles will tell you that this lapse in memory is due to our growing reliance on technology. This may be so, but I’m a little skeptical. I don’t think we can blame our iPhones and label-makers for the complete loss of awareness that we often experience. As Foer explains, our idea of the supposed “functions” of memory differs greatly from opinions of those who preceded us.

In the middle ages, books were primarily used as “memory aids.” Rather than writing things down on post-its to recall them for the test, our 15th century contemporaries didn’t need texts for the answers. At a time when printed books were rare and money scarce, they had no choice but to rely on their memories.

While I’ll admit that I couldn’t recite 98 percent of the numbers in my cell phone without cheating, I know that my compulsive desire to have things right here, right now, has significantly affected my memory.

We believe that everything we invest our time or, god forbid, our money into must prove itself worthwhile immediately. A penny spent without gratification is a penny wasted.

When the healthcare debate was at its peak, a hospital chief executive shared with NPR that, in his mind, Americans are so caught up with instant gratification that they “cannot wait until the next day to see a primary care physician, which would accommodate most of their needs…if they were willing to wait.”

Whether this is true or not, it’s clear that we’ve come to a point where the waiting game is taboo. Frankly, we’d rather forfeit the game. At least we wouldn’t have to wait to see who won.

It’s hard to imagine a world where we don’t believe in instant gratification. We have no reason to give up convenience for overdue deliveries and delayed e-mail responses.

But until we find our way out of this mess, we can help ourselves by giving our memories something to do once in a while. Before you glance at your notes to find that necessary detail from lecture, take five minutes to actually try to remember it and let your brain search. In most cases, that mass of weight on your head that makes your hair look good will execute its job perfectly and you’ll end up feeling incredibly intelligent.

If you’re in the mood for some bestsellers, MAYA MAKKER recommends anything written by one of the three Foer brothers. If you’re thankful for the genes in that family, let her know at mgmakker@ucdavis.edu.

Your few years of study will come to an end here. You’re all set to get that freshly-minted degree of yours. You’re all set to enter the world and jump-start your career as a yuppie (young urban professional). That’s the game plan for many of you, isn’t it? So, did you want fries with that?

Yeah, you’ll probably want those fries soon. Hate to say it (and it’s been said before), but getting that dream job and living on your own is just wishful thinking for many. Things look awfully grim with daunting unemployment rates.  An article in Time noted that unemployment rates for people under the age of 25 are as high as 54 percent. Now, that’s encouraging.

What’s one to do? Move back in with mom and pop? Many do. The same article highlighted a survey by a consulting firm, Twenty Something Inc., which found some 85 percent of graduates go back to holing up with their parents. Many of them had difficulty finding work, I imagine.

What gives? They’ve got the degree! They’re qualified! That’s only half the equation, buddy. You may have the necessary tools in your toolbox, but that doesn’t make you a pro. The missing puzzle pieces are experience and passion; some quirkiness doesn’t hurt either.

I’ve been on that boat before. Just sitting idle and twiddling my thumbs, thinking my life and career would take off for greener pastures after nabbing a degree. Luckily, I came to the realization that this isn’t going to do me much good, unless all I wanted to do was work as a drone in the retail sector or in food service, waving my degree and proclaiming, “I did it! I’m different!” Now I’ve got an internship lined up for the summer and an interview soon. It would seem as though I am on track, and hopefully I am.

Recently, I had the chance to take a tour and attend a Q&A session at the offices of IGN, a video game news and media website. During the Q&A session with the editors and staff, I heard more of the same when it came to hiring. Experience, experience, more experience and passion are what people look for.

Greg Miller, an editor, recollected how he, with a fresh degree in journalism, had applied about 12 times at IGN to no avail. And, it was all because he had nothing to show for himself – zip. So, he began writing, made himself a nice paper trail, and later found himself being hired the day after he applied at IGN for the last time.

When asked if he’s ever thought about trying to start a family and whether or not his salary as a writer worries him, Miller chuckled. He said that he wishes to never get older and that he doesn’t plan on having children, but he does know people who do have children and do this particular line of work. He said not to worry about the money too much so long as this is the career you enjoy.

Jennie Fissel, IGN’s “talent wrangler,” described how just about everyone looks the same on paper when sifting through hundreds of resumes. Fissel detailed how they’d recently hired an employee for their design division because her resume had an awesome logo on it. “We just had to have her,” said a coworker of Fissel’s. Of course, your mileage may vary in being able to look unique and fresh on your resume depending on your field of interest.

Don’t go thinking you’ve got it made in the shade because you’ve got a fancy degree coming your way. You’ve gone the distance to get it; I’m sure you can go a littler further to put it into practice. Do something! Don’t press your luck too far and settle for the fries. 

LARRY HINH believes in people! Believe in him at lthinh@ucdavis.edu. Need ideas where to get started? I know the perfect Wednesday columnist for you to talk to.

It was a great pleasure to discover the response of Rob Olson to my previous opinion, “Now or never,” because it means that at least one person took the time to read what I wrote and cared enough to write an answer. This being said, I completely disagree with Rob’s conclusions. (You can call me Fred. I am not that old).

First, Rob questions the fact that inequalities increased over the last decade, arguing that I quoted an article by Joseph Stiglitz (Nobel Prize in Economics) that does not provide any source. It is very disappointing that Rob did not check the other reference that I had given (website Mother Jones, paper named “It’s the Inequality, Stupid”) or he would have found interesting statistics.

For instance, the average household income of the top 1 percent has been multiplied by four between 1979 and 2007 while the bottom 80 percent did not see any increase. What is the source? The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office that provides inflation-adjusted numbers (2007 dollars). I think that Rob will appreciate this reference. So, the affirmations of Mr. Stiglitz are well founded: the richest are getting richer while the rest are not.

Then Rob quotes a conservative analyst (Brian Riedl) who tried to show that the Bush tax cuts did not benefit the richest. “The share paid by the top quintile of households (by income) increased from 81 percent to 85 percent.” It is really unfortunate that Mr. Riedl used the top 20 percent as an example. It really looks like he tried to hide an inconvenient truth: the tax rate for millionaires went from 36.4 percent down to 32.4 percent after the Bush tax cuts (source: The Tax Foundation). Yes, you read that right. The millionaires pay less taxes but the fiscal burden increases on the top 20 percent, so the top middle class (the top 20 percent without the millionaires) is paying for the millionaires. It is clear that the current system transfers the wealth to the wealthiest and now we also know that Mr. Riedl is intellectually biased by the conservative ideology that makes the promotion of greed and selfishness.

Finally Rob talks about two economists (Arthur Laffer and Stephen Moore) who explained that the tax rate on the top 1 percent went from 70 percent down to 35 percent between 1981 and 2005, while they are paying now 39 percent of the fiscal burden instead of 17 percent. Nothing surprising if you take the time to think about it: the richest became so rich that they are paying a higher fiscal burden even with lower tax rates. This may sound fair but this is not, because as it has been already shown, the richest are the only ones to get richer (within insane proportions), so the current dynamic is completely wrong. One can really question the intellectual honesty of people who keep denying that inequalities have been increasing since the presidency of Ronald Reagan.

It is even more disappointing that Rob did not try to answer the rest of my previous opinion. I explained how the increasing inequalities create instabilities in the economic system and generate an increasing pressure on natural resources. The consequences are really serious because the biosphere cannot provide what we are asking for. Denying these facts would be a proof of either huge ignorance or criminal cynicism.

Two months ago, I talked about these issues with Laura Tyson (professor of economics at Berkeley and adviser at the White House) who was at UC Davis to give a conference. She agreed that Europeans and especially Americans must adapt their lifestyle and show a better example to the rest of the world.

We only have one planet; we have to take care of it. Do we have to go back to the Stone Age in order to avoid an ecological disaster? The answer is no, and I invite you to read my previous opinion titled “Now or never” where I exposed reasonable solutions that can lead us on the path of economic recovery and sustainable development.

One last point to the attention of Rob: please stop calling yourself poor, because you and I belong to the top 20 percent of this planet. If you have ever visited a developing country, you would know what poverty really means and you would feel ashamed to call yourself poor.

Frédéric E. Vincent

Staff Research Associate, Ph.D candidate