Deus Ex Barba Rex

“He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he that hath no beard is less than a man.” - William Shakespear

Growing a beard isn’t necessarily something I set out to do a few months back. I think it was late in October, I was still tired of shaving, and “No-Shave November” was fastly approaching. Besides, I usually let it grow out a little bit every so often, and even more so once it starts to get colder. But really, there was no forethought put into it, I just stopped shaving one day back in October.

This halt in my shaving also included my head, because I usually ran the clippers over everything and made it all the same length, so my hair started to grow as well. It eventually got to the point where I couldn’t stand the constant maintenence of it, so I trimmed my hair down to something a little less involved.

But there was still the matter of the beard.

The weather had gotten much worse than when I originally started growing it, so it wasn’t the time to shave. Those cold mornings on the motorcycle would be far worse without a beard, and I really didn’t want it to feel colder on the morning ride than it already did. So the beard had to stay, for now.

But when to shave it?

Do I wait until it warms up? And at what point is it finally warm enough to shave it off? What would be the determining temperature or moment for me to shave it?

That’s about the time that I started joking about it. I’d run into people I hadn’t seen since they left the company, and they’d comment about the beard. Some would even ask how long I was going to let it grow. I’d joke and tell them that I wasn’t going to shave until the company started doing better. But that was soon followed up with Dusty Hill and Billy Gibbons comments.

Then one day during lunch with a former coworker, I was compared to Stonewall Jackson. Well there were a few Civil War era leaders that I was compared to, but it was finally settled that I mostly resemble Stonewall Jackson. So then we got on the recurring topic of how long I’m going to go without shaving. And that’s when it was suggested that I tie it to another goal in my life.

For those that have been reading for awhile you know that some things happened that made me wake up and realize that I finally needed to be serious about losing weight, eating right, and getting healthy. And in that, I’ve lost a lot of weight. Not as much as I’d like, but hey, it’s an ongoing process. As of this morning I’ve lost 40lbs.

In our lunch a couple weeks ago, it was discussed that perhaps I should shave once I’ve lost 50lbs. It’d be a milestone in my weight-loss campaign, and at the rate I’m going these days (weight’s coming off slower now), it might be Spring by the time I lost that next 10lbs. So it could all tie together.

Since stopping shaving several months back, a cult following has formed around the beard. Deus Ex Barba Rex. It roughly translates to Rex’s Beard is God. I didn’t come up with it, nor did I found the cult. It just sprouted up, and I’m referred to as The Bearer of the Beard. So there is that pressure to keep this thing going.

Anyway, I really don’t know if I’ll shave once I lose 50, but that’s the goal for no. And once there, I’ll re-evaluate to see if I want to keep growing the beard for a little longer.