Morning, muchachos.
Hola, StillUndefeatedBret.
The first four days with new ink are a pain in the ass.
Never done it and it's not looking probable. I think I'm one of the very few without and I'm ok with it.
Once upon a time, tattoos were for warriors. Then white sailors on tall ships came across them south of the equator, and adopted them as badges of hardened seamen who'd seen the Southern Cross. Then the ethic of the rebel loner took hold in American culture, after WWII, and bikers and soldiers sported tattoos. Now? I haven't tried to verify, but I suspect that if we haven't crossed 50% of the human population, it's getting close.
Deep down in the human soul, it's still about seeking a universal truth. Relativism has become the dominant view of ethics in the world, but that conflicts with primeval instinct in the human psyche. If everything is relative, then nothing - and no one - really means anything or has any value.
A tattoo is very difficult, painful, and expensive to erase, and really can't be completely. It leaves scars. So it becomes a fixed reference point in a person's life. Everything else can erode into entropy, but the tattoo leaves a permanent mark even if its vibrancy and definition fade into unrecognizability. It sticks with you. It represents a decision you made that you had to live with. Cogito ergo sum.
Merely having a tattoo now means little. The only way for them to be meaningfully symbolic is to choose carefully what they commemorate. Then you have to live with it.
