A friend of mine has a theory that there is only so much hair in the world.

So as a newborn revels in growing massive amounts of hair, someone else in the world is losing it. By contrast, my 9-month old is still bald – presumably waiting for someone in the world to start losing his hair so she can grow hers.

This “give and take” has analogies in the music world, as well – rubato. Italian for “stolen time”, rubato refers to expressively shaping the music (phrasing) by adjusting the tempo ever so slightly – temporarily removing one’s sense of temporal structure. Many performers believe that whatever time you steal, you must give back somewhere else in the piece – in other words, the total time of a piece is fixed (like the total amount of hair), and if you give time in one section, you must take it back in another.

Is there only so much communication, so much messaging or so many channels in the world? Is there a point at which what you communicate gets lost in how often you communicate – are you communicating with people who want to listen? Are you sending them content they want, or is your message getting replaced by something more important or more relevant (someone else’s hair)? Do you really have to wait for someone else’s channel to die before you can start your own?

What makes your hair unique?