my tattoos and what they mean

My mum would roll her eyes right now no matter what I’ll say… But I already got 13 now and still plan some more (sorry mama), though money is reserved for other things right now…

I love tattoos. I believe they are a form of art combined with self-expression. A tattoo is a mirror of the soul, showing parts of the inner self, values, and thoughts of a person. But someone showing you their soul doesn’t mean that you’ll understand it: Sometimes you see a word like “love” or “hope” and you instantly get it. Other times there are just symbols that need to be deciphered. You might guess what the meaning is by how you know the person, but you could also be entirely wrong. I think that’s another beauty of a tattoo. That I choose the meaning of the tattoo for myself and that others interpret them how they see it/see me/know me.

Now, let me start to decipher some of my tattoos for you:

Each time I see a science-fiction movie about time traveling and the characters travel to the past and they warn each other not to change anything cause it would change the present time drastically I think that is the spirit we need when we look at our problems. There are so many things one would like to do but one doesn’t do because one thinks that doing a small act by him-/herself won’t change anything.

But doing small things change things: Like last year there was this trend to not use straws. This could be considered a small act as there are so many other uses of plastic that could be stopped. But this trend changed so much. Leading to many people not using single-use plastic packaging, restaurants switching to paper straws, increasing interest for organizations which clean beaches/oceans and not to forget the awareness a trend is causing. Yea, you see the ripple effect.

My “writing the future” – tattoo is telling me this each day: What we do today will change our tomorrow. We can change stuff!

This tattoo is inspired by Paramore’s song “Fake Happy“. The song has lines like “If I smile with my teeth, bet you believe me. If I smile with my teeth, I think I believe me.” or “Oh please don’t ask me how I’ve been. Don’t make me play pretend.” or this one “You see it’s easy when I’m stomping on a beat but no one sees me when I crawl back underneath.”. So, this tattoo simply means “I know fake happy”. Our desires, what we do and what we don’t do is mostly emotion based. I think everything we do is emotion based but I won’t talk about this now.

Although we have so many emotions, we repress a couple of them more than others. Some emotions are unwanted like sadness, anxiety, disappointment, embarrassment, frustration… While others are more than welcome. This is what my “I know fake happy” tattoo is reminding me each time I see it. Not to bury all my feelings deep down. To let them out and talk through it. Cause I can’t be me if I don’t let myself feel. Nonetheless, there are situations one should repress what they feel I think.

The smallest tattoo I have now but I love it. It has so much meaning: XII is the roman number 12. Our clock is divided in 12 hours. We count time in seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years… We feel the flow of time. We look at the past, live in the present and build the future. Though scientists say that time is an illusion. They say time is a dimension. Like the way, we can pinpoint each place on earth with three numbers: degree of longitude, degree of latitude and the attitude to sea level. Now time is the forth dimension and with it you can pinpoint all events that happened (I really hope it is understandable how I described it).

So yea, there are 4 dimensional coordinate systems. You can see all of the coordinates. And that‘s how the points of time (past, present, and future) are all mapped on there. You can imagine seeing them all at the same time on that coordinate system. Existing at the same time. So that‘s what they tell us when they say time is an illusion (if I got it right).

If that theory is true there is no time. Time is just a subjective concept our mind put on this dimension. There is no going forward in time. Time does not pass. It’s all happening at the same time. But we still count time and feel it. And everybody does. Time is a part of us. That‘s the beauty of time. Look at the past, live in the present and work on the future. Even if time is not real we all use it and we can’t just stop to feel the flow of time.

Another Paramore tattoo. The butterfly is Paramore’s “Brand New Eyes” album cover and connected to the song “Brick by Boring Brick“.

The first verse goes like this:
She lives in a fairy tale
Somewhere too far for us to find
Forgotten the taste and smell
Of a world that she’s left behind
It’s all about the exposure
The lens I told her
The angles were all wrong now
She’s ripping wings off of butterflies

It’s about a girl escaping reality through fairy tales and pictures. Losing touch with the real world. I especially connect this tattoo with my dreams. That I don’t lose myself in my hopes and dreams that I don’t aim too high and get disapointed. Also, that I don’t run after false dreams: many people want a great career, maybe to be famous, a family or a life partner and so on. I just don’t want to run after all these things cause that’s what a good functioning member of society should have. If I want it i will work on that but that I want to be sure that it really is what I want and not what society tells me to do.

Well, I do believe there are aliens out there. I think the universe is way too big for us earthlings to be the only living beings in here. Also, this alien represents my desire to get to know the unknown.

And the last one for now. Sun and moon (though the moon is shining), day and night, light and darkness, good and bad, Ying and Yang… I don’t think that the moon is bad or that the sun is bad! They represent two opposing concepts. Light and darkness. That’s how I feel about almost everything. Everywhere two things/concepts standing opposite to each other. In me, on this earth, in this universe. I just try to balance the opposing forces that are inside of me. The light and the darkness inside me. Though neither one is good or bad I think. Sometimes things feel good but have bad results (like eating too many sweets) and there are things which feel bad at the moment yet they lead to good things (for me it is getting out of bed early but after I can get so much stuff done).

That’s it! Thank you for reading! Let me know what you think and maybe you want to tell what your tattoos mean to you in the comments.