Taboos, Hoo-hoos

Smile … Hah!

“Smile though your heart is breaking…La La La.

 Smile though your heart is aching ….”

“Medicate though your mind is crazy …

 Medicate though your will is lazy …”

“Cutting” is considered self-harm and a symptom of severe mental illness.  Paying someone else to jab ink into your skin, as in “tattooing”, is considered an “Art Form”?  I don’t really know.  I don’t have any tattoos, but I am told by any number of friends who are really into tattoos, that it can really hurt. 

So I can go somewhere and hand over several hundred dollars and get a picture or some stupid symbol, of whose meaning I might have only vague knowledge, jabbed permanently into my skin.  Or, I can stay home and carve a couple of lines on my self somewhere.  And, two weeks later it has healed up and gone away. 

Now I am not advocating this.  I am not advocating cutting!!!  God forbid, anyone should advocate self-harm.

But … think about it.  To display grief over the death of a family member, many, many, many, cultures have all kinds of severe, some super severe, things they do to display their grief and respect and, I guess, love for the departed.  A lot of them fast – as in starve themselves – for, sometimes, lengthy periods of time (like a month).  The indigenous Hawaiians used to knock their front teeth out.  And, remembrance tattoos are common, but so is self-scaring and even branding.

I’m just pulling up the question … I guess.  Some things, cultural taboos ‘n stuff, kind of fascinate and sometimes frustrate me.  For instance, women’s high-heeled shoes.  I don’t get it.  They’re terrible for their feet, uncomfortable (I hear), sometimes downright dangerous, bad for their backs – all kinds of negatives.  For what?  To appear a few inches taller?  Balding men who wear ponytails or hair buns?  What are you trying to say?  Can’t get your motorcycle helmet over a ponytail or a bun, and if you do somehow cram your stupid bun in the helmet – looks really stupid when you take it off.  And, we can still see you’re bald!

Fascinating, to me, is also the American thing with bumper stickers.  Some are really funny, some are cool, some are really foul; but why you take something you spent a huge amount of money on and stick stickers (?) on it.  It’s like getting a tattoo on yer face?  Tattoos are fine, but – well, on your face is kind of  … ;;; what the fuck are you saying with that?

To wrap up – so much is so dependent on how you look at something like behavior.  For my own part, if tattooing wasn't so expensive – assuming you hire an artist with real talent – I'd be as tatted up as a Hell’s Angel.