Do your tattoos make you more beautifully you? Would you still be you if they were gone tomorrow? Listening to Stranger In A Strange Land (Heinlein) and am at a scene where Mike thinks that Patty’s tattoos make her more beautifully Patty. Mike is picturing her without them, imagining himself with them, wondering what would make Jill more beautifully Jill if she got some. All in all it’s a great scene.
So it gets me thinking. How much of my identity is wrapped up in my tattoos? When I tell people I haven’t met before to meet me somewhere one of the first things I use is the phoenix on my arm and my big ears. Are they just descriptions of how I look, or descriptions of me? If I woke up and they were gone, would part of me be gone too? A big part of my life is tattoos, piercings, and I don’t just mean my income. I mean my interests, my views, my hobbies.
On the flip side, I have some work I want covered. Is that because those pieces no longer make me more beautifully me? In a sense.
I would still be me without them, same as I would still be me if I had to wear a yellow shirt and matching shorts for the rest of my life. The clothes would not define me in the same way my tattoos do not define me, but at it’s polar opposite, my tattoos tell all about me if you know what you are looking at and therefore do define me in a way that clothes never can. Maybe if I were a fashionista clothes would define me, but seeing as I am not, it’s not a good way to tell you who I am.
