The Nihilism of Tattoos

I was getting my hair cut the other day by a winsome 25 year-old hair stylist with tanned lanky arms.

"I can't wait," she said, "next month I finally get my ink!"

"Ink?"

"My full-arm tattoo.  I've been waiting 6 months for one of Toronto's top artists to do my arm."

"But...," I hesitated, admiring her beautiful looking skin, "your arm is so perfect as it is.  It would be such a shame to cover it up!"

"Hmmm..." she pondered.  "It's funny you should say that.  I do have other ink in less visible places.  This will be my first really visible one.  Ink is so addictive: once you start, you can't stop.  I get such a rush every time I do one.  But now that you mention it, this is the first ink I actually have second thoughts about--I worry that I will lose something."

"You WILL lose something!" I assert, like an alarmed dad, "you will lose your really nice natural arm!"

"Yes, but my inked arm will be beautiful in a new way," she countered, but with weak conviction.

"I don't know.  I find tattoos really nihilistic."

"What does nihilistic mean?" she asked.

"It means you don't take the future into account.  Smoking is nihilistic.  Nihilism is like, 'fuck it, we could all die tomorrow anyway, so I'm just going to express myself here and now however I feel like; I don't care about the consequences.'"

She thought about it for a bit and then said, "I don't think I'm nihilistic.  I take careful care of my tattoos and I'm sure I'll love them for the rest of my life.  They are a part of who I am."

"How can you know your future self so well?" I charged.  "I'm nearly 50 now, and if I met my 25 year old self today, I'd barely recognize myself!"  (I suspect I'd be mostly disappointed by my future self.  I turned out so...plain.)

The conversation got me thinking.  I've taken great care throughout my life to maintain a thread from my past self to my future self.  Recording every composition, preserving every drawing, every letter, every photo.  I have boxes and boxes of treasures from my past, packed with little keepsakes, each one an emotional time machine back to more fragile times.  But I wonder: Isn't all this curated communication between my past and future selves a certain Narcissism?

Nihilism and Narcissism are two sides of the same coin.  Both are expressions of vanity.  One is "I don't give a shit," vanity, and the other one is "I very much give a shit," vanity, but both are self-absorbed.

I write these thoughts on a blog, in the cloud, so they will be preserved for all time.