A TATTOO FOR YOU

Apart from me, there are hardly any people on the beach without them, the individual or universal pictograms on their skin, which already frightened Ishmael in the cabin of the Pequod, only that they had a ritual meaning there on Queequeg. The deciphering of which is more difficult for today’s contemporaries, apart from the codes of the gangs, for which, thankfully, I am not an expert. For those who are not aware  who Queequeg is, do yourself a favor and read „Moby Dick“.  In any case, no one here is a harpooner, at best an amateur fisherman, so nowhere can you read off the number of pieces of prey taken, define an origin, or recognize any other justification except that of concealing one’s true self behind a kind of wallpaper. They are all patterns, often repetitive, and it must be difficult for the viewer to tell whether this person is like their tattoos, or wants to be like them, or just wants to belong to the club of colorful birds of paradise. Under certain circumstances, this is what makes it so appealing to find out, and in doing so, to come across the soft core of the tough guy.

For women, fashion seems to be more decisive in this respect, the direction is body art, often of course also the expression of dissatisfaction with one’s own appearance and the desire to optimize oneself.  As it is warm here, you can also see wings on the feet of the grandmas, or small reminders of their youth, when this “tradition” was obviously not so common and usual, as it only becomes widespread among younger generations. Of course, we must not forget the biological urge to attract mates through colorful things, as with mating birds, except that they stop after mating, while humans are still buried with them. A strong driver of this phenomenon seems to be the urge for uniformity, which psychologists have certainly already proclaimed, and I think they are right. However, the purpose of uniforms is often to make hierarchies visible and thus to go into battle, so I ask myself, what battle do they want to fight with their war paint? Against themselves?  And who is an officer, and who is the sergeant? As a blank slate, you still want to behave appropriately, so you mumble “nice tattoos man” and hope for no deepening of the discussion, which would only bring to light the total ignorance of motives, figures and meanings, apart from names. However, the ice is thin, it could be that of an ex. But perhaps they also give their wearers a better hold, precisely because they remain as long as they are, documenting something, even if it is parts of their lives that they would rather forget, it is as if tattoos have taken on the function of a permanent corset, the contemplation of which sometimes takes your breath away, because memories are linked to this and that. True to the motto, whoever writes stays, or as our old teachers used to say: write it down and you won’t forget it.