Tattoos

It occurred to me recently and not for the first time. I was out and about and became surprised at how many people have tattoos. I must be a minority; a dying breed. I have never felt the desire to have a tattoo. My initial exposure to them was my grandfather who was a sailor originally and therefore it was accepted. If I wasn’t so terrified of needles in my younger years would I feel different? I doubt it.

I see tattoos not as body art but as defacing one’s body. That’s my personal opinion. The western woman has became drawn towards this in approximately the last thirty years I’m would say. How did it come about? I think if you were to go back to the 1970s or before, the majority of ladies would be horrified at the very idea. How very un-feminine!

My own feeling about them has always conjured up visions of rock music, long hair and stinking leather clothing. I’ve always been into hip hop and house music which is a different scene altogether and I guess tattoos were never part of it. Certainly not part of the stereotype anyhow.  I have enjoyed and do enjoy a lot of rock music and its off-shoots but this business with leather jackets, skulls and fireballs I don’t get. Take Goths for example. What is that all about? And emos.

Back to tattoos. A lot of tattoo artists actually wish they could go back to an unblemished skin and some place a higher value to that than all the best art in the world. This is how I feel about it too.

Tattoos and clothing are a representation of ego. They make a statement about that person and display an outward appearance of what they want the other people to see. Clothing and tattoos is vanity. Vanity is a form of attachment. Attachment to anything will bring dukkha (dis-satisfaction) ultimately as it is something that will inevitably fade and decay away.