TATTOOS AND REGRETS

Doing something that cannot be undone is a decision that lasts a lifetime. It is difficult to recognize that. It requires balance and common sense at all times. Difficult to maintain balance and common sense all the time. You feel like doing it, so you do it. Once it's done, then what? How does it end up?

Having a child is not a decision that can be undone. It requires awareness. Primitive minds? Unfortunate moments? They only realize the mistake afterward. Sometimes not even then. Doesn't self-esteem allow it?

Choosing a name for one's children is another permanent—or at least very difficult to reverse—decision, yet many people make that choice because "they felt inspired," because "they thought it sounded cute," because they wanted to honor someone, or because they wished to permanently identify themselves with a certain ancestry, ethnicity, or religion, or out of admiration for someone, without considering the consequences.

What if, later on, that becomes a burden for the child? A name can become a tattoo on the forehead. Of course, much depends on the future environment and on the child's personality, but it costs nothing to help by choosing a neutral, common, international name and, preferably, one that is not fashionable, so the poor child will neither have countless namesakes nor feel embarrassed by it.

With drugs, starting is easy; quitting is hard. And the time lost to them can never be recovered. "Oh, but I can quit whenever I want. Look at so-and-so—he uses them and isn't addicted." But what if addiction does happen? Sometimes that secret serves as a way of keeping someone under control. They think they have been accepted because they joined the group. But that control is slavery.

Committing suicide or killing someone cannot be undone. Publicly offending someone may also not be a good idea, because it can be difficult to take it back; you may never be able to gather the same audience to hear the apology.

Tattoos on the skin belong on that list of foolish decisions and, certainly, of unspoken regrets.

Around 1995, on Monday evenings, TV Cultura or TVE (it's been thirty years—hard to be certain!) rebroadcast a program from CBC Canada (Late Night? The Uncensored Show? The Best Commercials Never Shown?), featuring an excellent commentator (an overweight woman—today she might be called "plus-size") who was unconcerned with being politically correct. On the contrary, she enjoyed exposing society's hypocrisies. One day she said:

_ If the government decided to mark troublesome people so we would avoid getting close to them, human rights activists would complain. But there is no need—they tattoo themselves."

It is difficult to agree entirely with that statement, because not everyone with tattoos is troublesome, and probably not every troublesome person gets tattooed, but that is what she said. It was ironic, yet understandable. It also proved somewhat prophetic: facial recognition and iris identification now serve much the same purpose as branding cattle, although in this case only the database operators know whom to locate or pursue.

In other words, tattooing had already become a worldwide fashion. Anthropologists ought to investigate why so many people adopted this habit. Until about 1980, very few people had tattoos; they were mainly associated with sailors, prisoners, and soldiers. What drives people to do it? Herd mentality? Attraction to being different? Wanting to look foreign? Extravagance? Wanting to appear tough or grown-up—a common attitude at certain stages of mental development?

People often say, "There's no accounting for taste." Yet good taste has much to do with intelligent culture and refinement. Even among unconventional minds, there is good taste and bad taste. It is undeniable that our music has regressed. By copying foreign rap music, we moved backward. Tattoos are, at the very least, something associated with the nouveau riche, with exhibitionism, with people who do not know what to do with themselves, and, with all due respect, something rather "tacky."

In the USA and Canada (1912 / 1918), we saw many huge billboards reading something like: "Sorry about your tattoo, AA Dermo Clinic." A chain of dermatology clinics investing in tattoo removal services. Evidently filled with discreet customers.

Since regrets are usually either unspoken or difficult to admit, there is a tendency to avoid discussing the subject for fear of appearing prejudiced or critical. In reality, it is simply out of convenience. Why invite trouble? But if warning people is already difficult, saying nothing at all may make matters even worse.

When adopting foreign agendas, one falls into these traps. The hope is that, just as "no good thing lasts forever," neither does "any bad thing last forever."

Miguel Fernández y Fernández, engineer, chronicler, and columnist, member of the National Academy of Engineering and the Engineering Institute # written in Dec2025 R2026FebRd, 4,384 characters