I’m a firm believer that not everything has a purpose. Especially in the context of art; I think that some art is simply done for art’s sake, for beauty and aesthetics, nothing more. Like my tattoos. Or so I thought.
A month ago, I decided to get my first tattoos: a thin, minimalist armband wrapped around my left upper arm, and a holy wound tattoo on my right rib, which I got from Buffalo Bill from the classic thriller movie “The Silence of the Lambs.” I thought they were cool and suited my style, that was why I got them done.
“But what do they mean?” my friends asked.
“They have no meaning,” I said. “I just love the design.”
“Come on, there has to be a meaning behind it,” they replied, not buying my excuse. I rolled my eyes and shrugged them off. “I owe no one an explanation,” I said to myself.
But at some point, I did search online for the meaning of these symbols. Apparently, an armband represents a deceased loved one, while a holy wound means submission of oneself to religion. But who dictates what they mean, anyway, if they ever mean anything at all?
My tattoos are tchotchkes — they have no function and are just decorative art.
Don’t get me wrong, I believe in functional art. I just think it’s pretentious when you have to explain your art for the sake of having an explanation. Can’t a tattoo be there simply because you like it?
I would rather spend my time thinking more about the design because, heck, this ink will be ingrained on my skin forever, so it better look amazing.
Purposeful tattoos are fine. They can mean family, a significant other, an occupation, or whatever meaning you want to give them. Want to have an intricately designed tattoo with an underlying significance? Great. Those are valid, but so are my “meaningless” tattoos.
Recently, though, I came to realize that maybe they do mean something. And it may be encapsulated not in an armband design or an obscure ’90s pop-culture reference, but in the act of getting a tattoo in the first place. It’s rebellion.
Growing up in a society where many still view
tattoos with disdain or suspicion, I didn’t even think I’d ever get one. I thought those were for gang members, so getting one was not in my personal blueprint. I grew up in a conservative Christian home where I was taught that tattoos were for bad people.
(I wonder how my OFW parents would react when they find out I now have tattoos.)
Who knew that a clean-cut honor student would be the first one among his high school batchmates to get not only one, but two tattoos?
My tattoos are a shocker because they are out of brand, as they say — a brand of myself I have created based on society’s idealized standards, a glamorized version of me. I strove to be an ideal young person during my student years, so my friends couldn’t help but think it was a bold move for me to get a tattoo.
I simply got tired of people’s expectations of me that I went ahead and did something that I considered rebellious, in the form of art and body modification combined.
Now I’ve begun to think of many other reasons why I got inked. Perhaps it is a longing for freedom. Perhaps it is my own small defiance of societal standards. Perhaps it is all for beauty’s sake.
I will still be unapologetic about my tattoos, but here I am now, realizing that my meaningless tattoos may, in fact, mean a lot.
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Jeremiah Raro, 21, is a moderator and production editor at the Financial Times in Manila.