By Cameron Baillie
Not long ago, I had never properly considered tattoos. I didn’t really understand them, but also never opposed them. Then, amidst the pandemic and some fairly major personal life troubles, my second-year housemates bought a D.I.Y. stick-and-poke kit, out of boredom more than anything. We were quickly tattooing ourselves and each other (to varying degrees of aesthetic accomplishment), with little regard for whether we’d appreciate their permanent placement on our bodies.
So I sat, painstakingly poking a lucky charm onto my ankle, my personal projection of better fortunes. We probably did it just for fun, lacking something better to do. But in those moments, I believe we imprinted something deeper onto our persons: commitment to our youth, our friendships, our unique situation in space-time, locked down together.
Later, on a spur-of-the-moment holiday post-finals, came my second tattoo – a simple word: fjaka (look it up!) – inspired impromptu by a peculiarly charismatic Croatian taxi driver. I was particularly keen to mark that singular treasured moment forever, encapsulated on my forearm. I now have nine tattoos and plan many more, each with different meanings, signifying different commitments. My most recent marks a great personal achievement which I’ll carry forever, signifying the values I learned.
One might think tattoos less significant than I. They are aesthetic body-works, after all: perhaps they are simply strong aesthetic choices? Yet to disregard tattoos as such is misguided. They are well-documented acts of expression and identity-formation. They can be symbols of resistance and non-conformity. They are also correlated with risk-taking or sensation-seeking behaviour, substance abuse, and sexual proclivity, at least among students. They are clearly consequential.
Tattoos have also been fundamental to worldly cultures for millennia, from Austronesia to the Americas, African tribes to Japan, even Gallic and Pict peoples here in Britain. They have marked Russian mafiosos and Yakuza, Latin criminal gangs and navy sailors. All of these cultures and subcultures uniquely engage the ultimate act of esoteric identity-commitment: by marking their corporeal being.
Clothes or accessories may be similarly significant, but can never demonstrate such value- commitment when they are easily removable. In the darkest moment of modern history, tattoos were weaponised, perverted in their marking, to dehumanise prisoners at Auschwitz. Clothing the persecuted in infamous ‘pyjamas’ was not enough. That ultimate commitment became the worst imaginable, reducing human lives to nothing but numbers to be crossed off, enforcing upon their bodies the twisted ideology of oppression.
Under normal circumstances, however, we can create ourselves in small, but often incredibly meaningful, ways by taking our mental ideas and committing them to our bodies. In such acts we confront the mind-body problem. Our worldviews – our perceptions about ourselves and our place in our society – we take from our minds and impress onto our bodies. In doing so, we can demonstrate to others’ minds who or what we are (unless placement is more discreet). It is great self-affirmation, reminding us forever of what we value dearly.
Not all tattoo-commitments are as profoundly significant as others, that’s granted. But the very act itself is significant, made even more so by the significance (not to mention expense) of tattoo removal. If someone decides they no longer espouse some inky idea, then they make the equally – arguably more – profound commitment to disavow themselves of that past. The internet boasts former neo-Nazis doing just that: newly enlightened, subsequently ashamed. To do so is to create oneself anew.
So, if you’ve been considering getting tattooed, I say do it. Damn anybody who tells you otherwise! You are you: make it count, make it yours, and make yourself in that creative act.
Illustration by Mithalina Taib
