Gin

I am somewhat amused that my first post on this forum is about tattoos! Let's jump in, shall we?! I have three tattoos, all of which were deliberately chosen after a great deal of contemplation. One of my tattoos is a kanji (Japanese writing). However, unlike the assertion in the above quotation, this makes perfect sense for me as I am a 27 year veteran of Karate-do (a Japanese form of martial arts). As well, the translation is extremely meaningful to me -- it was meaningful yesterday, it is meaningful today, and it will continue to be meaningful to me until the day that I die. As well, the tattoo artist used a brush stroke, making the kanji sufficiently appear as calligraphy. It is beautiful. I wear my values on my skin, as I do in my words and actions. They are positive values expressed consistently. Therefore, according to my view of human life, my tattoos are moral. This is not to say that there are not situations in which getting a tatoo is immoral. I am related to a woman who "collects" tattoos because she believes that they are "cool." She walks into a tattoo parlor, picks a picture that will either offend people or make her, in her mind, come across as a bad*ss. There is no positive, evaluative reasoning to her choices. According to my view of the world, this is immoral because she is acting destructively rather than constructively.