Tattoo Viewing

Much like my compulsion to read any t-shirt that happens to be passing by (spotted this morning: “Not all who wander are lost. Some of us are looking for cool rocks.”), I’m always curious about tattoos.

If what someone wears can say something about them, then how much more is that the case for something they’ve decided to have permanently inscribed on their body?

Personally, I have two tattoos. One is a legacy of my youth, something I picked out of a book and decided would represent my love of astronomy (it’s a single, stylized star that someone with the right mindset could also see as a shuriken). I’ve been thinking about adding to it for quite a while now, but I can decide which direction to take it: as the brightest star in my favourite constellation/asterism (Pleiades), or as a giant star with a small binary companion. My own astrophysics work is in star and solar system formation, so there’s that potential direction, too: a star that’s just achieved ignition and is now blowing off the rest of its envelope. This one might be a little too subtle for anyone other than me, although who else is a tattoo really for? The other is a Star Trek tattoo I got jointly with my son at his urging. He has the other half.

But I’m straying from the point. I nearly always find my gaze tracing a tattoo I haven’t seen before, admiring detail, structure, and content. I’ve often remarked to someone that they must have spent a lot of time in the chair for the work. I’m careful about letting my eyes linger too long, of course, but I have found that people are typically appreciative of the notice. Actually, more than simply appreciative, most of the time people are just a touch embarrassed and self-conscious, too. It’s odd that compliments on outfits and hairstyles are generally part of social discourse but the art we’ve chosen to adorn ourselves with permanently should go unnoticed and unremarked on most of the time.

But whether it becomes a topic of conversation in any given passing interaction or not, if someone has a visible tattoo, I have noticed it and I’ve had at least a moment’s interest in categorizing the fact about them, what the tattoo tells me about their likes, dislikes, or things they value whether now or when they got the ink, or both. Tattoos are interesting and there’s a story of some kind to go with each and every one of them.

And I have a hard time believing I’m the only one who’s interested in those stories.

Be well, everyone.