My hiking buddy was interviewed at the gym today. I laugh because he hasn't been to the gym for weeks, and when he does, he gets chosen for an interview. I cry because of why they chose to talk to him. They're doing a story on "freaks", and he qualifies because he doesn't have a single tattoo. In my circle of friends, that's pretty common, but apparently in the society at large, we have become freaks, because we don't do what everyone else does, and they think that's newsworthy. It strikes me as odd that WE are considered odd because to my knowledge a short while ago, it was people who had tattoos who were the minority.
I suppose that's how it works. Just like other fads and fashion trends that change with the vicissitudinal winds what was once common now becomes passe, and what was once acceptable becomes bigoted and vice versa. Only once in my life, during my second year of college, was I "in fashion" and it was because fashion changed to what I was already wearing. I do not change to please the jury because that's neither genuine nor fiscally feasible, and the only way I want to keep up with the Joneses is if I'm running from a bear and they're in front of me. I think most trends are about validation- that the more people who join in with you on a thing the more comfortable you feel, the more you convince yourself that you did the right thing. Paradoxically, history often validates the standout, the standalone, and the steadfast singleton who resisted the urge, the pressure, and sometimes the threats to conform or die.
In putting up my friend as part of an ersatz circus freak show, they act as if it's grotesque for a person to stay clean and unadulterated. However, that's how most people really are. Much of the news I see constitutes nothing more than editorials meant to create the impression that something is true or common or acceptable when you probably disagree. Particularly with those who hold long-held beliefs, this is about consistency. People know where we stand, and even if they don't like it, they do know where to find us and how they will find us when they get there. I will be true for there are those who trust me.
For my own part, I never took a shine to tattoos for any reason. I maintain that people who feel the need to say things about themselves are probably trying just as hard to convince themselves they believe in those things as they are to convince us. In a way, that's all tattoos are really is a pictographic or scrawled depiction of what matters to you. I don't believe that those things tell the truth any more than it makes you a jerk if someone scrawls "jerk" on your front porch with chalk. Stereotypes and other sweeping gestures do not tell you the whole truth even if they are true, and we have a hard time reading what's written on people's hearts, on their souls, and in their minds. Most of what you actually see is costumery; most of what you see is a play.
Also paradoxical, the rising generation seems deathly afraid of being "the same old thing". They portend fascination with standing out from the crowd as they all do the same things to separate themselves from what they term "the shades of a decadent past". All the more as they do this, those of us who do not follow like shrupshire sheep seem the more unique and independent as we quickly and apparently become the last vestiges who do differently from the rest. When everyone has a tattoo, they won't be cool; they won't be trendy; they will be "conservative" and "traditional". Perhaps that's how they fell out of favor in the first place as a generation sought to be different from their tattooed ancestors. Whatever the case may be, we are certainly not freaks as they chose to connote. More and more I agree with Inigro Montoya, that people use words that do not mean what they think they mean.
In closing, I leave you with some advice. Be you. Do what you do. Have your own opinions. Live your own life. Anything else means that you subjugate yourself to the decisions and opinions of others and live their life rather than your own. If you truly want to be unique, be true to yourself. Be loyal to the royal within you. You have to live with the decisions that you make, so become the best person you can be by inscribing on your heart things worthy of remembrance.
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