Tattoos

Tattoos are a way to express your beliefs when you are too lazy to express them by actions. We have/had a good buddy, American Lithuanian, who is "proud" of his heritage, but not enough to do anything besides party with Lithuanians sometimes (sometimes being rarely in the distant past) and get a tattoo. He's got a big gorgeous Vytis on his shoulder, proclaiming a very real devotion to something that's actually very superficial for him. I don't hold it against him, but it doesn't mean any more to him than does his tongue ring.

If you're proud to be Lithuanian, it shows: the three of us, though we don't have tattoos, have gone to the trouble of spending considerable time here and getting our citizenship.

If you're a Neo Nazi, it shows: you beat people up, you yell stuff about jews and black, and you shave your head: you don't need to tattoo a swastika on your chest.

If you love your wife, it shows: you talk about her, you take her out, you spend time learning about things that obviously only she (not you) is interested in: you don't need a tattoo on your ass proclaiming your love.

If you love to smoke weed, it shows: you're stoned, you dress and groom youself as a hippie, you go to the grocery store in a bathrobe in the middle of a weekday; you don't need a tattoo of 420 or a marajuana leaf.

Or, perhaps you've got a tatoo simply for a decoration. A barbed wire fence around your arm. A tweetie bird. An asian pictogram. An "insert penis here" sign pointing to your vagina (or mouth, or ass, to each her own) or an "insert this into your vagina" sign pointing to your penis.

In the case of decorations, I don't think tattoos are wrong, I just think they're equally stupid to lip plates and neck extending rings.

Case in point: a friend of mine is soon to get a tattoo on his leg that says "Life's a bitch and then you die, so fuck it all and let's get high!" I asked him how he'll explain it to his children (in the future, if he has any), if he'll be proud to tell them that he's a proponent of narcotics. He gave me a very weak explaination that this tattoo doesn't necesarily have anything to do with drugs...you can get high on life, or "in" life, or whatever...wouldn't it be much more meaningful (read: it might actually mean something) and clear if people drew conclusions about you from your life's work rather than from something written your body? This blog's title is a conclusion I have come to about myself, but I'd like the rest of the world to draw its own; I won't get an "Undisclosed is the Best" tattoo.