If I see one more infinity sign or angel wings tattoo on anyone I will stop this person and interrogate the living hell out of him. I will ask him why on earth he would commit his precious skin to a mere fad, an imitation of just another design flooding my Instagram account when he could choose something that is personal, meaningful and unique to him to engrave on his body.

Tattoos are magical. This might sound a bit too exaggerated, but they are. They’re like visible fingerprints that are special and unique; and just like their owners, none can be the same.

The feelings inside of us, translated to a shape, a tattoo, then an endless communication with the world is quite sacred. That explains why I find it offensive to imitate a design that already exists on someone else. It loses the exclusivity of the whole point. It doesn’t make any sense to me, to search ‘dragonfly’ and then choose one that obviously has been replicated a 100 times.

I dislike how this art has somehow transformed to a fashion when initially it carries more meaning, reasoning and value than just Googling a design and impulsively getting it done.

Don’t get me wrong, many people understand the importance of this decision. It takes them years to decide on a special design to translate a feeling they might have, a value, an experience or something that means so much to them that it becomes a story of its own on their skin.

But I haven’t met too many of those in Egypt.

Forget about how big the tattoo is or how colorful and intricate it may be. The fact that you are about to mark yourself with something that doesn’t necessarily make sense to anyone else but that you can relate to, reminding you of why this simple ink design is there to remain forever, is why I believe a tattoo is a beautiful ongoing experience.
I’ve always fell in love with how this skin art can portray so many things about the owner. For example here, after getting my own, and delving so deep about the different kinds of pain offered from the different parts of our bodies, I now bow to a female with a neck tattoo. I know this is a courageous woman who tolerated a much higher level of pain than that I experienced while getting my arm tattoo, which basically tickled rather than hurt me.

It’s little things like this that make me want to see more of this art on people, it’s like a visual conversation that started off with a dab of color.