Temporal Art on Temporal Things

Alex Grey Painting

USA Today had some breaking news citing a study revealing once and for all that the choices we make today have an effect on our tomorrow. Moreover, that the future, say ten years from now, will be utterly different then any future we can imagine.

Basically, after all the quotes from Yale professors and scientists, their theory is this: think back ten years, things have changed drastically since then right? Now think forward ten years, the change that will occur will be more radical then you can picture in your head.

So what does this mean for tattoos? What you think is cool now will be hindrance in the future.

No shit.

The aura around tattoos is a dangerous one, that is the whole draw of them. All those kids who have hand and throat tattoos weren't too ignorant to project in their minds what the future might hold. Nor were they riding some trend wave that'd break them against the rocks. They were expressing something inside themselves and expressing it through tattoos.

Someone with face tattoo is not being held back from that three figure suit job with 401k with medical, dental, and mental and a biz-cas-fri for the next forty years just because of their face tattoos. Really the choices that we've made and the ways that they have adorn their bodies are the exterior signifiers of internal workings. Their brand, their tattoos, separate themselves from what they deemed hum-drum and banal, however subconsciously. Their tattoos exclude them from the classic culture and they transcend into something different, something alternative.

The difference being that now tattoos are no long in a subculture or in a counter-culture. Tattoos are no longer for low-lives and thieves. Tattoos are now an alternative culture, one just as positive and highlighted and above ground as an accountant or a lawyer. When they pass a tattooed person on the street they no longer cross to the other side, they no longer clutch their purse, they have no choice, the tattooed are as predominant as windsor knot ties.

I'm not said "Duh" to USA Today. What I'm trying to say is that Karen Weintraub (the author of the article) is taking a narrow view of the topic.

I'm sure there are plenty of 30 year old's that jumped on the band wagon and regret the stars or Japanese symbol they tattooed on the back of their neck. Karen is probably one of them. What I am trying to say is that the mistakes and free will choices that are presented to us in youth and how they effect the outcome of our life as a whole is not new advent sprang from tattooing. Tattoo is no more detrimental as a life choice then cocaine was in disco or LSD in the 60s or premarital sex leading to teen pregnancy in the whole of the modern era. Adam and Eve ate the apple a long time ago.

We don't need to bring in studies and professors and experts to let us know that the decisions we make are going to effect us ten years from now. We need parents and councilors who'll help these 20 year olds finding their way into accounting or environmental science or computer programming or music or tattooing.

Be whatever you want to be; isn't that the dream (burden) we've all been presented?