Among Heroes, Madmen, and Gods

What Hamlet, Zarathustra, Rāma, and Myshkin Reveal About Hair Loss

Hair loss is rarely just about hair. For many, it is the most visible sign of something collapsing from within, health, youth, identity, control. In my clinical practice, I’ve seen men and women face hair loss with the same despair they experience in death, separation, or serious diagnoses. But I’ve also seen them be reborn. And, curiously, it was in literature, especially in the tormented, divine, or absurd characters of four central works of human history, that I found striking parallels to how we deal with what slips through our fingers. This text proposes a journey, a dialogue between The Ramayana, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Hamlet, and The Idiot, with hair loss as the guiding thread. A provocation? Perhaps. But also an invitation to those who wish to understand why taking care of hair can be as profound an act as facing one’s destiny.

The Fall and the Exile: When the Hero Loses His Throne (The Ramayana)

In The Ramayana, Rāma, a virtuous prince and rightful heir to the throne, is exiled for 14 years. His father, overwhelmed by palace intrigues, yields to Queen Kaikeyi’s wishes. Rāma, the embodiment of dharma, accepts his fate without rebellion. But what does it mean to lose the throne? For many of my patients, hair loss is exactly that, a kind of exile from their own identity. They look in the mirror and no longer recognize themselves. They feel betrayed by their own bodies. For some men, losing hair means losing the archetype of virility, for many women, it means abandoning the realm of beauty, acceptance, femininity. Like Rāma, they are forced to live outside the palace, outside normality, even if their virtues remain intact. Rāma’s lesson, however, is clear, exile is not the end of the journey, but the beginning of growth. He returns transformed, more whole than before. Those who face hair loss with courage, who seek to understand its causes and treat it responsibly, also come back different, more self-aware, wiser about their own bodies.

Doubt, Delay, and Paralysis (Hamlet)

Hamlet is the prince who knows, but does not act. Who suspects, but hesitates. Who desires, but fears. If Rāma symbolizes accepted duty, Hamlet represents chronic doubt. Hair loss, in many cases, is fueled by procrastination. How many people come to the clinic after years of “thinking about getting treatment”? How many, like Hamlet, search for absolute proof before acting, and in the meantime, lose more hair? Hamlet speaks to skulls, philosophizes about death, and hesitates in the face of action. Many patients live out this same drama. They believe their hair will come back on its own. That “it’s not that serious.” Or they prefer to wait for a miracle product bought online. The problem is, just like in Elsinore, tragedy unfolds through delay. But Hamlet is also human. Deeply human. And this trait allows us to see him as a mirror. If we identify with his hesitation, we can also learn from his collapse. Because tragedy, in the end, begins when the time to act has passed.

Zarathustra Comes Down the Mountain: The Eternal Return of Health (Thus Spoke Zarathustra)

Zarathustra is a solitary prophet. After ten years of silence, he descends the mountain to speak to humankind. But he finds a world still clinging to old ideas, where the average person fears freedom and rejects transcendence. In the world of hair health, this passage from Nietzsche is brutally current. Much of what people still believe about hair is outdated, simplistic, and impoverishes the complexity of care. People seek a shampoo, a vitamin, a magic bullet, and reject the idea of treatment that involves time, discipline, testing, listening, and integration. Zarathustra preaches the “overman,” a being who does not settle for what is given, but seeks to overcome. And here lies a key insight for those facing hair loss, one must step outside the ordinary. It’s not about repeating formulas, it’s about rethinking the body, health, and lifestyle. Just like Zarathustra, the patient who returns to care after hair loss returns transformed. Their hair, when well-treated, does not come back as it was. It comes back better. Stronger. The result of new choices. The eternal return here is not a literal repetition, but a transcendence of the previous cycle.

The Purity That Disturbs: Myshkin, the Idiot Who Sees With the Heart (The Idiot)

Prince Myshkin, the central character in Dostoevsky’s novel, is called an idiot not for a lack of intelligence, but for a near-impossible kindness in a cynical world. He sees others with purity. He believes in beauty, even in suffering. Among my patients, there are many Myshkins. People who, even as they lose hair, even as they endure rude comments or ridicule, maintain a deep faith in life. Who choose to treat without resentment. Who open themselves to integrative therapies, active listening, better nutrition, more respectful cosmetics. But there is also the opposite, a world that rejects the sensitive. That mocks men who care for their appearance, that belittles women suffering from alopecia. That reduces pain to vanity. And that is why Myshkin must exist. He reminds us that caring for hair can also be a spiritual act, of beauty, yes, but also of ethics. Of saying, “I care.” Even if the world thinks it's ridiculous.

Hair Loss, Awareness, and Return

What do Rāma, Hamlet, Zarathustra, and Myshkin have in common? All of them, at some point, experience loss. They lose the throne, sanity, faith in mankind, or the capacity to love. But they all have something to teach us about how to keep going. Hair loss, at the surface, may seem trivial. But for those who experience it, it activates deep layers of anguish, identity, and time. And that is exactly why great books help us. They expand our listening. They remind us that behind loss, there is always the possibility of return. In the end, caring for hair can be the most visible way of telling the world, and ourselves, that we are trying to rise again. That, like Hamlet, we have chosen to act. That, like Zarathustra, we have reinvented our health. That, like Rāma, we have accepted exile as a path. And that, like Myshkin, we still believe there is beauty, even in fragility.

Caring for Hair Is Caring for the Narrative

Every hair that falls carries a piece of our story. But every hair that grows holds the chance for a new narrative. My patients do not merely want their hair back. They want to reclaim who they were, or perhaps, discover who they can become. And maybe this is the greatest lesson these works offer, we are not defined by the losses we suffer, but by how we choose to rebuild. With or without hair, what truly matters is the gaze we carry. Because in the end, as Nietzsche wrote, “One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.”