Tattoo You: Immune System Cells Help Keep Ink in Its Place
npr.org
npr.org
People go through cycles, where their personalities and interests shift every decade or so. Hardly anyone in the 40s and 50s is the same person they were in their 20s. I'm in my 40s now, and I love (in no particular order), Iron Maiden, Spiderman, Sci-Fi, LEGO, The Amiga Computer, Batman, Star Trek, Star Wars, Dr Who, Pink Floyd ... and that's just my top ten, right now. I couldn't pick something that iconifies my number one love, and certainly not something that I will feel the same about in 40 years time. So for now, I am content to just be a voyeur of other people's awesome tats.
I don't mind at all though and I will never get them removed. I look at them (rarely or when somebody asks me about them) like a history of my personal development. The cross reminds me that even the things I care most about at one point will change, fade, die.
Scott Campbell equates his body to looking like a truck stop bathroom stall. He has poorly done tattoos, great tattoos, tattoos that have no meaning, tattoos that have great meaning, but no tattoo he regrets.
These tattoos help remind him of where he has been and where he wants to go.
I've had it now for a few months. I’m just a bit embarrassed by owning up to having had myself tattooed to my very closest family members. My sister and my girlfriend both sport multiple tattoos, but somehow mentioning it to my father or anybody more senior unsettles me.
While I can understand opening up to friends and family about getting a tattoo can be hard or embarrassing I am glad you are beginning to do so.
I am sure you don't need my advice but if it helps just remember that your tattoo is a part of you but not the whole you. It's just a physical manifestation of something of interest to you. It doesn't make you any more or less of a person than the person your friends and family love.
From the link your provided I'm sure your tattoo looks awesome.
Make no mistake, I love it. It reminds me of the beauty and underlying pattern of the universe.
Just a few of my tattoos have meaning, the rest don't. But they all take me down memory lane and remind me of various times of my life.
Up the irons.
Your interests change blah blah. Yes they do. But you don't go around thinking every day about the tattoos you have. Most of the time you don't even notice they exist. It's like a cool looking mole or something. It's just there, part of your body, ignored until something makes you notice it.
Usually that something is a new person you're meeting. Now you have a cool and interesting story to tell, if you feel like. If you don't, you can just say "Eh it looks cool" and they're happy with that answer too.
I have a tattoo that looks cool. But it's also a reminder of my first ever solo trip abroad where I saved up all summer to go to London for 2 weeks at 19. That was cool. I could talk about that trip for hours.
I have a tattoo that's sentimental. A joint tattoo with my sister. I got something in her handwriting, she got something in mine. I have terrible handwriting, poor girl. But I'm pretty sure we will always stay brother & sister and the tattoos will have great sentimental value. Plus they look cool.
I have a dumb tattoo. It's on my butt. The logo of my first startup. But it's also the story of how I visited Silicon Valley for the first time ever with dreams so big.
I want more tattoos.
I agree. I have two tattoos that make me laugh, and they usually make others laugh the first time they see them too. One is symbolic (but still stupid and funny), the other one is just stupid and makes people laugh, which in turn makes me laugh.
It doesn't have to be profound or represent you as a person or have some deep symbolic eternal meaning, I look at it as a way to make my skin look less boring.
Maybe I’m optimistic.
1. http://shoulditattoo.com/2016/09/03/tattoo-facts-statistics/
There's a picture of it in this piece I wrote about my tattoo artist: https://medium.com/@jacobevelyn/communications-ink-773642f6f...
And some examples of the "whimsical" side of it on this website I made: http://www.thattat.com/#13
As for getting tattoo about a particular thing you like, like a rock band, this seems a stupid thing to do indeed. Never knew a single person with a tattoo like that.
He told me, why are you getting one? if you like something so much, tattoo it in your heart, not on your skin.
I am glad I listened to that advice and never got a tattoo. As you said interests change from time to time and at the end of the day you can be whoever you want to be within your brain, there is no need to show it off to others.
P.S. I got nothing against anyone that has a tattoo, the advice worked well for me, other people love to have tattoos etc.
- a Chinese dragon because my father is born in the year of dragon (Chinese Zodiac)...
- a snake because my mother is born in the year of snake...
- a guitar because I like playing guitar...
- a gear-powered sun because I like steam-punk stuff and I like outdoor activities, a.k.a sunlight (link to the tat https://www.instagram.com/p/Bf4lxG3gNTG/?hl=en&taken-by=jaac...)
They are all rather superficial but I would unlikely regret having them.
There are absolutely tattoos one can get that are less likely to incur regret. It's like getting hardwood floors in your home instead of patterned or brightly colored carpet.
I see many millennials with full sleeves of flash art that means approximately nothing to to them, other than it looking cool and being very in at the moment. I think this is probably going to belong in the green carpet category.
There's been enough scifi with animated tattoos that I think it has to happen. :)
I hope it exists one day... How would it work?
Some day I may do something mathematical like a visual proof of a theorem I care about, or some symbol meaningful to me. Or maybe just something like this on my wrist:
Blood type: A+
Allergies: Penicillin, Eggs
If Dead: CryopreserveRecently there was a dilemma in an Emergency Room where a collapsed patient had a DNR tattoo on their chest: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2017/1...
(I’m simultaneously very reserved about it, almost to the point of embarrassment with family members, while at the same time being very proud and admiring of it. Odd combination.)
The “If Dead” bit is tongue-in-cheek because it’s probably legally useless, although I guess something like that could function as a way to get in contact with the right people in the event of an emergency, whether for cryo or notifying kin.
A big part of my decision to start getting tattoos in my late 20s and early 30s was talking with people who had them, many of whom advised staying away from such specific things. Add a level or two of abstraction, so your tattoo can be enjoyed on more than one level, because it's about more than one thing. Maybe instead of getting the cover of "Animals" by Pink Floyd, get a tattoo of three different looking pigs, like the song. That way if you end up disliking Pink Floyd, you have an artful tattoo of three pigs instead of something that can't be anything else.
Can't see that happening. :) But good advice none the less.
OK, so now with that flip comment aside. What makes the current generation lack the impulse control that previous generations had? Or was their lack of impulse control expressed in other ways? Probably a good psychology thesis topic.