As I look back, my twenty-seventh year has been the most challenging and rewarding year of my life. I’ve been brave this past year but not fearless. I’ve been reckless but not inconsiderate. For the most part I’ve chosen to live through my experiences and adventures alone in an effort to become more familiar with myself. I hate birthdays, I really do. It leaves me feeling overly emotional and vulnerable and I prefer to shy away in the shadows and not exist for the day than be the centre of attention. I avoid most people and pleasantries, pretending that I no longer walk this plain because I know that I exist as different versions of myself in the mind’s eye of those you know me- so my existence remains assured for the day even without my own active participation.

I sacrificed a huge chunk of who I thought I was for who I am becoming. Challenge and adversity have thread me like a needle and stitched the tapestry of my life anew with vibrant colours. The crimson reds of love that is just out of reach, the sad opaque shades of grey that glisten in my tears, the vivid blue hues of the many oceans I’ve had the good fortune of swimming in. All these colours paint the halls of memory with a new spectrum of feelings and familiarity. I am grateful for the sadness and what often times felt like insurmountable challenges which I have faced because it has gifted me with a deeper sense of appreciation for all the small wonders and the breathe-taking beauties of life that I encounter from time to time.

I cry. I cry more now than I have ever done before. I’ve caught the reflection of myself crying, bone-tired and despondent. Salty tears gamble with my emotions, only offering sweet release on their own volition. But I’ve also wept at the desperate beauty of life. I’ve sat on the back of a big blue truck, bawling my eyes out as I watched a little boy deep in Slumber’s embrace, veiled innocence guarding his dreams. For some reason this is the memory that I hold on to with white-knuckled determination. No longer walking blindly, I can see the beauty in the simplest things around me. Beauty in pink sunrises, dark alleys and chance encounters. The haunting beauty of people. I now understand that it will always be people over places and things. That’s common nouns for you. Places are only beautiful because of the people who inhabit them.

I’ve found beauty hidden between the rise and fall of words. Beauty in paired words, strung like pearls on a noose. I can’t. He won’t. I shouldn’t. I’m fine. Vicious little lies we tell ourselves. Beautiful. Beautiful little liars we are. But liars are smart and resourceful, they’re inventive and convincing and soon those loaded pairs of words break up and get rearranged, revealing themselves as something entirely different.

I can. I will. I am.

I am.

Enough. 

I’ve had a notable journey since I last posted something here. I’ve lived through all sorts of experiences. I’ve survived the muted build-up of saying goodbye and leaving. Settling in with my new perception of time. I’ve stood precipitously on edge of everything I know and with reckless abandon, leapt head-first into the great unknown. Travelled. Adventured. Journeyed.

Journeyed alone, I’ve broken down to the very marrow of my bones and watched all the preconceived notions of myself whistfully swirl and tumble like dust clouds through the bare tundra of my psyche. There have been days where I’ve moved so sweetly, so serenely through my day. Awestruck by the beauty and joy of all the small things that occupy my present. I am, and remain to be, overwhelmed by life. Through the past few months, I’ve learnt and unlearnt so many things. Witnessed the imperceptible change of how I approach life. I’ve been scared shitless and have at times revelled in the reward of living bare-chested against life’s wild heart. I find myself occupying the realm of uncertainty. I feel naked. Vulnerable and hopelessly ill-equipped to live mindfully- to be irrefutably present in the moment. It is so infinitely harder than I had imagined- to open oneself up to feel everything so innately, so intensely. It’s tiring and terrifying…and I have a long way to go before I find a comfortable balance of self.

I’ve experienced the bittersweet clutches of homecoming. Where everything and everyone felt familiar but different. Things have changed. Things are changing.

Change is inevitable and perhaps change is the price we all pay in order to take part in the grand scheme of life. The admission for an authentic existence. You soon encounter that change and choice are skilfully disguised in the terms of admission of existance – the fine print of life. Each soul has a tax levied on it, a carefully calculated percentage of honest reflection and self-discovery is required as a result. We are all put through an emotional gauntlet where our morals and character traits undergo a conspicuous form of break-even analysis.

Maybe this emotional break-even analysis is a defining characteristic of those marching in the funeral procession of their twenties.  We inhabit a space of malcontent. Restless by nature. You find the desperate value in determining the exact point at which you either bend or break.  What happens after that point? I’m not entirely sure because it is at this exact juncture I find myself.  It was while reading a letter, penned by Hunter S. Thompson in his early twenties, that I found parallels between my discovery of this emotional breaking point and the age old question of “to be or not to be”.

“In every man, heredity and environment have combined to produce a creature of certain abilities and desires—including a deeply ingrained need to function in such a way that his life will be MEANINGFUL. A man has to BE something; he has to matter.”

We are the sum of our reactions to experiences and environment. I’ve recently realised that although I can’t control the onslaught of emotions, I can control the manner in which I react to them. It is with this self-awareness that we are able to plot our various abilities and characteristics on a moral ledger or existential spreadsheet, if you will.  Queue an emotional break-even analysis. We define our margins of safety. We assign values to revenue and cost.  In this scenario, we can view revenue as the collective term that encompasses fulfillment, the value that we assign to personal goals, as well as the sense of achievement and satisfaction. Cost is determined by how we react to uncertainty, our propensity to rise to the challenge, making hard choices and the amount of energy expended in the attainment of our goals.

There are times when life relentlessly and unforgivingly knocks you around, times when you just suck it up and dust yourself off. You hope that your your trusty friend Logic will prevail and decide to relegate emotion into cold calculations. You undertake an analysis to determine the point at which the revenue received, equals the cost associated with receiving the revenue. Basically, is it worth it? Does the hard work of self-discovery and brutal honesty warrant the payoff when the payoff seems frustratingly out of our grasp? I suppose breaking points by their very nature are true to their name. Do you bend or do you break? Do you resign yourself to taking the path of least resistance or stride belligerently into the great unknown? Do we float with the current or swim upstream? Maybe the beauty lies not in the substance of which path we decide to forge but in the fact that we have a choice at all.

Instead, we might find solace in where we find ourselves presently. On the cusp of an emotional tipping point – our breaking point. We exist in a sovereign state which is dictated by the forces of uncertainty and probability. We leer skittishly over the edge. Surveying the landscape of endless alternatives. We weather the winds of change and stand at a junction that forces us to engage with one of the most meaningful aspects of life - the definitive act of will. And so it is, that we discover that the act of free will (which defines man as an individual entity) reveals itself in the form of a way point. A way point on the summit of our breaking point.  The equal sign in our emotional equation. Free will defines us. It’s what assures our place as sentient beings. It forces our hand and demands a subjective approach to life.  Living through our experience subjectively provides the momentum needed for change. It is will that actions change. It is will that demands us to weigh the choices with which our path is beset.

In his letter, Thompson sheds light on this malady. He divulges his formula in which emotional revenue and cost is calculated against each other to achieve a sense of balance.

“As I see it then, the formula runs something like this: a man must choose a path which will let his ABILITIES function at maximum efficiency toward the gratification of his DESIRES. In doing this, he is fulfilling a need (giving himself identity by functioning in a set pattern toward a set goal) he avoids frustrating his potential (choosing a path which puts no limit on his self-development), and he avoids the terror of seeing his goal wilt or lose its charm as he draws closer to it (rather than bending himself to meet the demands of that which he seeks, he has bent his goal to conform to his own abilities and desires).

In short, he has not dedicated his life to reaching a pre-defined goal, but he has rather chosen a way of life he KNOWS he will enjoy. The goal is absolutely secondary: it is the functioning toward the goal which is important.”

Maybe more than choice, more than change, one should perhaps monopolise on chance. Chance, risk, will, determination, opportunity – they’re all different expressions of the same thing. ACTION. Movement and method...method to the madness of life. Be a verb and take action! I suppose if you want anything in your life to change, you need to make the choice and take the chance.

To be honest this is what I’ve had the hardest time with lately. Finding the right opportunity to take action. It’s so laughably obvious why I am struggling with this. It boils down to my reluctance to exist in the present moment. Who is to say when the right moment will avail itself? What constitutes the right moment? And so by extension, we can assume that the right moment can only ever exist in the opaque realm of probability. In a place removed from the present, namely the future. The root of most of my anxiety and frustration stems from my tendency to live in the future. Meticulously working through a probable list of scenarios that don’t actually exist. This cultivates apprehension and breeds doubt. How very tedious it is to expend so much energy on worrying. I suppose the consolation of my new found self-awareness is the fact that I am now able recognise the fact that most of my energy and intention occupies the wrong time frame. 

Maybe it’s about taking a moment to enjoy the view from the summit, to set my baggage down alongside the way point. To acknowledge that I’m at my breaking point. To stand in silence and remember the lessons that I forgot. To appreciate that I’ve survived up until this point. To readjust my focus and  forget about the big picture by looking at everything up close. To watch and to try and understand. To never avert my gaze from what is happening right in front of me. To get lost in the simple beauty of the unfolding moment. And to never, never forget.

It’s hard to say goodbye, it’s hard to let go, it’s hard to leave everything you know.

You know who you are,

Let’s not think about tomorrow. Let’s just focus on today. The future has always been a gamble so let’s strip away all the doubt and all the fear and adopt a rather clinical approach, steeped in logic when we look at our future.  We have the benefit of sharing a long and winding past, where each tomorrow was saturated in uncertainty. The sum of all those ‘tomorrows' that first arrived as ‘todays’ and then almost effortlessly became our ‘yesterdays’, wove the tapestry of our past. The beauty of hindsight is revealed in the simple fact that we survived the anxiety and uncertainty of those ‘tomorrows’ together. We bravely took control as they morphed into ‘today’ and felt a sense of collective achievement as we looked back on all our ‘yesterdays’. The fact is that we survived them all, side by side, they best way we knew how.

For someone who is instinctively wired to be responsive and proactive, blessed with innate foresight, I find it quite ironic that you were the one to gift me with the lesson of being wholly present in every lapsing moment. You opened my eyes to so many things:

The Kiss

• You showed me not to view time as a mortal enemy; one which runs on the currency of anxiety and seems impossible to control.
• You taught me not to devalue the current moment by focusing too intently on a future, corrupt with elaborate scenarios. Wasting energy on hypothetical situations when I could instead invest that same energy into appreciating the now – relishing in the abandon of the moment.
• You showed me that I had a choice. I could choose to view the relentless pace of the clock’s hands differently. You taught me that it’s okay to take a seemingly illogical approach to the passing of time and militantly proclaim that I’m not running out of time and that our time does not have to be dictated by mechanical gears and brass cogs or the faint sound of seconds ticking by.
• You taught me that it’s too easy to be lured into an apathetic state where the alluring guise of a countdown appears too easy to accept when in reality, all it really is, is defeatist resignation. That by counting down the days, not only was I displacing my responsibility but that I was also releasing what control I had over the situation at hand.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “We acquire the strength we overcome.” On the laurels of this quote alone, you should take comfort that we've beaten the odds and succeeded – we have years filled with memories as a testament to this. So in the same way that you gave me the gift of appreciating the present, I want to remind you of the lesson you taught me. 

It’s not about running out of time or feeling like we have all the time in the world – it’s about making the most of the time we have. I’ll even be as bold as saying that we should pretend that time doesn’t exist. Because if we remove the concept of time and it’s hold over our lives, if we don’t allow ourselves to get trapped between those twelve foreboding numerals, all we are left with are moments. Moments in themselves are devoid of expectations, wants and needs. By their very nature they are honest, advertising nothing more or less than what they have to offer. 

So remember that this is where we exist; this is where we dominate – in this very moment.

I love you eternally, (the irony of this statement is not lost on me given the context)

Your Wife

We are kings and queens of the wind. Children of mystery and madness.

Sentient, indomitable, extraordinary… extraordinarily fucked up that is.

The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence. Absent I have been, safely ensconced in my own twisted mind, plagued by MSG induced nightmares. Today marks the start of a new chapter. I quit my job, done my time, paid my dues, and gone to some effort to sever the umbilical cord wrapped tightly around my neck.

It’s a new day, a new dawn, so fuckit. The world is apparently ending in the next month and a bit…apparently. We had a meeting and Apparently can’t deny that the world is in fact, going to hell in a handbag. This leaves me feeling somewhat unaffected. Essentially I believe that every waking moment we are alive on this plain of existence, we are in a constant state decay, veering ever closer through various stages of death.

I know. I noticed the Buddhist undertones there too…must be all these nightmares. Sometimes nihilistic pragmatism can be beneficial, especially if you’re in an anarchic kinda mood. Because we’re there. In hell. Apparently. We had another meeting and me and Apparently disagree on the whole “waking, eternal damnation” part. This clearly illustrates the reason why I have a problem with organized theocracies. It’s in my nature to remain wholly suspicious of anything I don’t intellectually or intuitively agree with 100%. Ironically I do believe in reincarnation. Yip, that’s right. It takes a lot of work to be this morally obscure but someone has to do it. Newly unemployed, I might as well give it a go.

After diving into the rat race at 19, nothing gives you more perspective than spending your first day at home (after years)…alone….Unemployment sure is creepy, but reflective. Things I’ve learnt during my monumental two year lapse of judgement. Don’t work with family…ever. Don’t. Just don’t do it. Okay let me say this in a broader scope…don’t work with my  family. There’s logic involved.

How much time do you think the average person spends with their family in a period of a lifetime? What is an acceptable amount…and what are the effects of such exposure? All valid questions, all of which needs to be taken into consideration when attempting to understand my unique version of logic. Let’s do the math. From the moment of conception you do your best imitation of a directionless chesterburster from Alien for nine months until gestation lapses. The average mom takes 4-6 months maternity leave. Our average tally at this point is 12 months spent with a parental figure. That’s 52 weeks even. Twenty four hours a day of intense contact. That’s 8,736 hours.  It would also be a safe assumption that after that, the average person does not spend an extended amount of time with a parental figure. Generally, life does not necessitate this.

It should be noted that at this particular stage of life, you are completely vulnerable and in early stages of cognitive development. Basically, blowing spit bubbles is by far the highlight of your achievements to date. And you don’t have an opinion. You don’t even know what an opinion is. You do know that you like boobies, which happens to turn into a life-long fascination.

Governments get overthrown, mullets and handlebar moustaches have made their second comeback and Riaan Cruywagen retires.  It’s twentyfive-some years later and you have to spend eight hours a day, five days a week with genetic relations…for two years! Fuck me, Charlie. Do you know how much hours that is? 7,200 hours. 7,200 hours you can never undo. 7,200 hours you can never get back. And coincidentally it’s roughly (sort of) the same amount of time as our previous scenario. I have conducted this survey on one individual, which means 100% of the test subjects prove my theory. These are the facts…the results are irrefutable. This is science and Apparently said it was true.

Since I now boast the cognitive function and rational skill set of a functional human, spending so much time with them was…challenging at best. It’s unnatural. Show me, where this occurs in the wild. Show me. It’s science. Therefore sound logic is SOUND.

Shame, it’s not that I hate them, it’s that I hate being a part of that family…or A family, just so messy. These crazies are so much work. My mother’s standard modus operandi is panic and my dad is the splitting image of Saddamn Hussain and has the same grand delusions as our Brother Leader, King of Kings, Colonel, He Man and the Maters of the Universe, the most exalted Muammar Gaddafi. So absorbed in his own god complex. I do admire that they each operate in their own perfectly constructed universes, each at the helm as their own godhead. Revelry and nagging endearment, that’s what they evoke in me. At least they’re interesting, I’ll give them that.

With these sound reasoning skills I’m not too worried about not having a plan. It’s okay to sometimes not have a 12 step strategy and just move in whichever direction the wind blows, guided by Her Lady Destiny. Besides I’ve got this chaotic mess on my shoulders, sound logic and two legs that’ve gotten me this far… I’m sure I’ll manage.

Interesting times are ahead, I’ll tell you that much. Who knows what will happen, for there are known knowns, known unknowns and unknown unknowns…things we don’t even know we don’t know about. Meh. 

I said no offence...

This is my voice filled with ink and rage. Well, more like pixels and misplaced anxiety. I do declare that the novelty of feigned apathy has worn garishly thin. I've meticulously crafted a life where public access to my person is heavily regulated and restricted. And although I feel quite accomplished with my achievement, I've recently realised the cost of living the hermit lifestyle.

Balance is illusive and even if we for one fleeting moment... in our twisted way think we've achieved that, we pretend divinity. I pretend a lot of things, I pretend to pay attention ffs, but divinity, I most certainly don't pull off.

Functional agoraphobia. My grave, self imposed affliction. In ways, I can only complicate a situation further, my latest phobia goes beyond the basics. Don't get me wrong, I love being outside (provided it's not pissing with rain- thank you Cape of Storms), I just don't like being outside my comfort zone surrounded by strangers. So, basically you could call it acute adult-onset stranger danger syndrome. FML.

I'm not a fan of herding either. There's something about a crowd that dumbs people down, incites mass hysteria and encourages group stupidity. And we all know that stupid fucks are dangerous. Despite the fact that I can rationalise the necessity of my newly realised phobe with logically sound rebuttles of self preservation, I cannot as skilfully put my anxieties to rest. Maybe it's because I'm short. Maybe instinctively crowds and general public domain should unsettle me. Maybe I should just calm the fuck down and smoke a blunt.

My name is Charlie Sunshine and I'm a functional agoraphobic. A functional agoraphobic who quite ironically copes better fully exposed to the elements with hundreds, sometimes thousands of strangers at a trance party. I suppose the difference is that the heavy weight of unwelcome judgement dissipitates, outside, under a big open sky, in a field where everyone congregates, pulsing and ebbing to the DJ's sermon. Or at least it seems that way. Your background, demographic, preferences, associations....they don't carry any of the (mis)preconceptions or judgements and with them their resulting weight; like they do on the "outside"...and by outside I mean public realm. Maybe people are too fucked to care, too focused on achieving perfect equilibrium within themselves. On their own buzz. Maybe I'm just too fucked to care. I count myself lucky to have met some of the nicest, most considerate, honest, down to earth people during my trance adventures. Real authentic. People either accept you for who you are or move on. It's rudimental. No hidden agendas. And so in turn, it encourages you to be the most authentic version of yourself. No front, no barriers...just you, as you are in every fucked up shade there is. That's as fair as it gets. Don't get me wrong, sure you get your posers, Juice Monkies and Belles and Whistles, but the reality is they're everywhere. Their impact is insignificant at best. When the very atmosphere you breathe consists of the presiding energy of naked freedom, everyone is beyond escape. There's no time for bullshit façades. (bet you can tell I'm itching for an outdoor party...patiently waiting for spring to Sprung.)

Alas, I must continue to pretend to be searching for some balance. Not automatically hurtling into a fit of quiet panic every time I come into contact with strangers or anybody not of my choosing. The novelty of feigned apathy is a thin almost translucent layer, but it's the only layer I have left to protect myself. Protect myself from bullshit, that is. One day when I grow up, I really want to not care about what anybody thinks of me. Not just pretend not to give a fuck. Namaste.

Sometimes I wonder who the hell these people are competing with?

To be better than everyone else is not the point.

To be the best version of you…now that sounds more authentic.

Call me what you want, bestow me with any label you choose. Agnostic. Heathen. Pagan. Religiously misguided. New-age hippy. Sun-worshipper. It’s cool, really. Most times I answer with agnostic when people ask me and most times it’s the hyper-devout that bother to ask.

“Is that like Christian?”......<sigh>

I’m married to a militant atheist and I have absolutely no problem with this. And just because my idea of god is extremely obscure and more convoluted than the terms and conditions of your mortgage agreement, doesn’t make it less of worthy adversary in the age-old realm of whether a higher power exists or not. Moth never bashes my beliefs, he also doesn’t go around the neighbourhood telling hapless kids, that Jesus to him is just as plausible as zombies…hence Zombie Jesus, thus destroying their (ingrained/ predetermined) carefully constructed religious beliefs.  Unfortunately, I can’t say that when the situation is reversed that the same holds true. The high and mighty will smell you from a mile away. And given half the chance, will make any atheist wish he believed in a merciful god that would strike him down on the spot, when faced with religious lectures filled with dogma.

What you believe in is undoubtedly up to your own discretion, but an orange is an orange is an orange. This is where science comes along. If you have a belief/theory for it to be true you have to go through due process and prove it to be so... substantiated by evidence. Once achieved, your theory is acknowledged to be true unless disproven. Sounds reasonable to me. There’s been increased hype about the Large Hydron Collider and with it, it’s new discovery of the Higgs boson or the God Particle, but how many people really understand this latest discovery paving the way to understanding the universe before they totally discredit it?

Fuck me, a layman usually doesn’t encounter theorised particle physics in everyday conversation but it doesn’t harm anyone to educate themselves. Please allow my most likely poor attempt to do so. The Higgs boson is the energy field that gives all the other particles a mass. It was identified during experiments conducted by CERN (Da Vinci code much?) simulating the same environment that occurred during the Big Bang thus going some ways into explaining why gravity exists and supposedly sketching a clearer picture regarding the origins of the universe. What does this mean for religion? Are the gatekeepers of the spiritual world up in arms? I don’t know…most likely?

CONGRATULATIONS. YOU ARE THE ONE BILLIONTH PERSON TO MAKE A “LARGE HARD-ON COLLIDER” JOKE ON TWITTER. YOU HAVE WON AN ALL ACCESS PASS TO SEVERAL ALTERNATE PLANES OF PERCEPTION. I AM UTAPU, GATEKEEPER OF THE HIDDEN REALMS. I BID YOU WELCOME.
(from my MOST fave site..click here)

Do I care? Not sufficiently, no.

When people use religion (race or even class for that matter) as yard stick to determine and most often times prove their superiority over someone else, I’m not available to participate.  I doubt any deity works on a podium system, so why should we assume that as believers and non-believers that that’s the way we should operate on this physical plane. When people are so starkly categorised, we promote the subjugation of individuals, attaching an unwarranted and counterfeit value to them. When this happens; life becomes nothing more than a ledger of profit and loss…people become nothing more than pluses and minuses on some moral balance sheet. And at the end of the day, these theistic accountants become as morally bankrupt as those supposed sinners.

Contrary to popular belief, this is not a competition. Believe in whatever you goddamn want. If you think that there is one clear winner at the end of this Race of Faiths...I fear we may have missed the point. For all we know, we are just talking monkeys, on an organic spaceship hurtling throughout space...which is just as plausible as any theocratic belief system.

Sound logic is...SOUND.

Yes…yes, I know. This post is not up for public consumption in the allotted time previously agreed to. What can I say….I’m a creature of bad habit and some behavioural patterns are set in stone. If you are salaciously wondering about how I’ve been so vehemently denied my most basic human right due to obvious consequence, I’m afraid it’s rather disappointing.

Think what you want. I’m not going to question the status quo….or the inaction of a certain individual.

My post (now late),  my ass (high as a kite) and his calculated silence. We each possess a unique cache of artillery, the important thing is to identify your not-so-secret weapon, use it, abuse it and hope to Jah that it remains as useful as the first time you discovered it. Having a bergina and being recognisably koot helps....A LOT and has garunteed my safe, smoky passage up until now. It's a deadly combo, and I'd say the two characteristics are interchangable...but they really aren't. Bergina always stands victorious.

 Bambi eyes and quarky can only get you that far, though. The rest is all about…

Source unkown

C-harisma

U-niqueness

N-erve…and

T-alent

Lipstick on a pig in other words, which brings me neatly to my next point. I suppose there are very few categories a twenty something girl can claim virginity in, mine would be tattoos. Rather late than never, I’ve always been keen on the idea of having myself inked. The only reason it took this long to get it done was figuring out what I wanted permanently etched on my skin. Besides the obvious cosmetic implications, getting a tattoo is quite an investment. 

There’s money. Good tattoos aren’t cheap, and cheap tattoos aren’t good. 

There’s time. Rounded up it took almost five hours to finish my piece.

And most importantly finding a skilled artist in a good studio. This is so key. Plus I like their mission statement.

No Picking. No Scratching. No Bitching.

No Ego. No Bullshit. Just Passion.

When sitting braless in the middle of winter for five hours, the setting is crucial. Nipple stand ruins lives (depending on your profession- it might enhance lives), and so the heater and cellophane wrapped pillow was most welcome.  Bestie bumz in tow, cupcakes, smoke breaks and hi-fucking-larious renditions of the CaptainPlanet theme song got me through, relatively unscathed. Going under the needle is totally manageable, it’s not the most pleasant- but it’s totally worth it. The worst thing is being plastic wrapped like a forlorn tuna sandwich for the following two days…and the surgical tape….(oooohhhhh, the humanity)...the tape kills me and was without a doubt the most painfull thing about this whole experience.

It’s true what they say, it’s addictive. And if you really are a “come as you are” type of person, body art could count as one of the most honest forms of self-expression. I was banned from even writing on my hand as a kid. I grew up in a concentration camp. Really. A concentration camp on the Cape Flats. I remember asking my old man what he thought about tattoos… eish, that was the furthest thing from a fairy-tale. My dad’s brother came home from school one day with an off kilter heart tattooed on his forearm done with a school compass and stained with battery acid. My granddad conscientiously took a scissor to my uncle’s arm (who was thirteen at the time), scraped that heart until it was no more and then, for some reason spread a thick layer of condensed milk onto the open wound. Not sure how the condensed milk was meant to help, but that horrific image has been imprinted in my brain ever since. Bitter sweet indeed.

Is mutilating a child really neccessary to prove your disdain for something? Really? Why can't people just be free to mutilate /modify/accentuate/ express what ever they like,as they damn well please? Tatoos throughout the ages have historically held contrasting significance. From the old world, differentiating the high born from the slaves, to the old-skool world where only sailors, prostitues and criminals were bestowed with colourful epidermis. I see walking canvases. Not delinquents. 

Present day, tattoos are more mainstream and the only thing that poses as a limitation are your brainwaves. Some people are prophets of doom preaching gravity and old age.  I'll probably look the same as any sixty year old, just colourful and did I mention badass. Since when is this the Moral Olympics? I must confess, I feel a slight obsession growing.

Source unknown