Why do people get tattoos?

MA writes:

You just don’t get it and your pedantic attitude exposes a feminine spirit.

You are like white bread, no nourishment left in you.

The first hakas were created and performed by different Maori tribes as a war dance. It is an ancestral war cry. It was performed on the battlefields for two reasons. Firstly, it was done to scare their opponents; the warriors would use aggressive facial expressions such as bulging eyes and poking of their tounges. They would grunt and cry in an intimidating way, while beating and waving their weapons. The second reason they did this was for their own morale; they believed that they were calling upon the god of war to help them win the battle. They were heavily choreographed and performed in time. It gave them courage and strength. This type of haka is called a peruperu haka.

“Ka Mate” is a haka that has been the haka most performed by the All Blacks when they play against international teams. It is a ceremonial haka, and it was written by Te Rauparaha. It is a celebration of life triumphing over death.

youtu.be/yiKFYTFJ_kw

It exudes masculinity that today has become a rare quality.

I have a bunch of tattoos, I got them because I was bored.

Magnus, how can you not like jazz? You’re crazy man.

Or you can simply listen to jazz music:
youtu.be/z-z6n0gm918

Which is my point.

The creative element generates ideas, options, possibilities, etc. The critical element, on the other hand, is that which applies filter to generated ideas. It is what separates the good from the bad.

The excess of creative element produces unnecessarily complex, noisy, random patterns which can then only be enjoyed mechanically, as a game of prediction, with little to no emotion involved, what you refer to as “critical/logical processing”.

That’s the problem of jazz music. Also the problem of baroque, which you mentioned, and virtuoso music in general.

The purpose of music, I would say, guess more or less in agreement with the documentary that you linked (but that I cannot see), is to represent emotions.

Though this is not always the case. In some instances, the purpose is merely to demonstrate the skill of a musician or the power of some technology. In such a case, a piece of music is nothing but a collage of all sorts of difficult-to-play or never-heard-before musical movements, sort of tech demo, producing an emotion no one can relate to because noone ever experienced it naturally.

A piece of music is supposed to reflect some naturally occurring emotion. As such, its content, the movements it is made out of, must have near absolute correspondence to the content of the represented, naturally occurring, emotion.

We say such a piece has soul . . . for no other reason than because it corresponds, with high level of precision, to some emotional dynamic we can relate to because it is something we have experienced naturally in our past.

The purpose of music is to imitate emotions.
The purpose of dancing is to imitate music.

Emotions → music → dancing

When this chain is broken, as it is today, strange things happen.

We now have dancers who do not even dance to music let alone to some naturally occurring emotion. You can change the music they are dancing to, even turn it off, and it won’t make any difference, because their dancing is highly independent, merely meant to show all the difficult moves they can perform.

And the choice of moves they perform is grounded in nothing but difficulty . . . what is difficult is automatically good, what is easy is automatically boring. So you can see plenty of ugly, awkward, moves performed merely because they require skill, in the same way you can hear all sorts of awkward sounds, e.g. farts, in jazz music.

Many consider silence, and slowing down, to be undesirable: performers, because such movements do not display much skill; audience, because people are restless, emotionally degenerate, incapable of pausing.

Division of labor is responsible for this, I would say. The benefits it has are not without the costs.

Composers, fewer in numbers, are responsible for tapping into their memory, selecting aspects of their past they consider to be of high value, and then choosing the best sequence of tonal movements that mimics them. Performers, greater in number, are responsible for carrying out the task set by the composer.

Performers are physical . . . they make physical movements they are told to make.
Composers are mental . . . they select, filter, attune, connect, etc.

The problem occurs when composers die out – being fewer in number, they are the first to die out – and all we are left with are performers who then attempt to be composers but without much success.

We live in the age of lower castes – artisans, performers, etc – trying to play the role of the now long dead higher castes.

What happens to children when they lose their parents?

With all that out of the way, I will say that, as someone who’s forced to endure VH1 music every morning, I’d rather listen to jazz than to motherfucking starboy.

Modern pop music is terrible . . .

I think this is the point of tattoos - it sends a message. First and foremost a tattoo is a label – I am a bad ass; I am sexy; I am smart; I am beautiful; I love my son or mom – the list goes on and on. Tattoo’s say something to us and the people that see them. Tattoo’s always deliver a message. It seems reasonable to me that people get tattoos in order to say something.

What is not so obvious, especially to the people who get tattoos, is that the opposite message is also sent. If you have to tell someone that you are a bad ass, smart or beautiful – you have some doubt these qualities or attributes are true. Insecurity and self-esteem seems to go hand and hand with getting and displaying tattoos.

Yes, it is a label.

Greeks associated them, I mean tattoos, with barbarians; with primitive people who have too much of warrior instinct in themselves and too little of other instincts (e.g. social instincts, which is why such people tend to be divided, constantly in war with each other, unable to organize themselves.)

It’s probable to say that people who are fond of tattoos are identifying themselves with barbarians. The bad ass look, and that attitude in general, is only part of it.

I understand that tattoos can be used, and are often used, to express certain thoughts and feelings but I also understand that such a form of expression indicates inability to communicate to others one’s feelings and thoughts using honest, clear and direct means, instead redirecting these impulses to hidden places hoping they will be discovered one day. It indicates asocial behavior, which again is in line with barbarism.

Women are attracted to them I assume because they were unprotected as children and still are unprotected as adults which led to them losing their feminine instincts and reverting back to barbarism.

There are rumors circulating on this forum that A Shieldmaiden might in fact be a man.

and :mrgreen:

You remind me of my dad: he’d always refer to piercings and tattoos as “mutilating the body”.

But you seem to answer you’re own question, Shieldy. Why would one want to scar/mutilate their own body? Because to them it’s not scarring/mutilation, it’s self-expression, exposing their inner self to the world.

It can, but usually for me, it gives off the impression of what kind of person she is on the inside, which can add to or take away from her attractiveness.

No, they are not. They are a personal preference. One or two little beautiful and meaningful tattoos situated just in the right spot can be enhancing…for instance, a baby dragon and a baby dragonfly. lol Like a body avatar.

It’s just when they become like a run-away train or an addiction, a substitute for something “going on” within, when they can be viewed as ugliness or inordinately disturbing. I think that sometimes when there are too many it’s a question of hiding a “self” that doesn’t want to be seen.

Wow, I never thought of it like that before. You could be on to something.

I’m trying to imagine if you’re the type to have a tattoo or not, Arc. ← Idunno… hmmm :-k … Don’t tell me, I wanna be in suspense for a bit. :laughing:

It is no different than putting on makeup or a mask.

Somewhat different. Tattoos are about self-expression (usually) whereas makeup is about enhancing attractiveness (usually).

Pride and ego.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfxosTobxlI[/youtube]

Tattoos are a kind of group pressure - comparable with fashion. The modern fact that fashion prevails over morals means that it even determines the morals. Let us see where this will lead to …

JSS wrote:

These two words are very close in meaning and to differentiate them can sometimes be difficult.

What is the difference between them in the context of your answer?

One could easily turn your answer around to read Ego and Pride.

Guess when the third one will be tattooed too!

[tab]And not by this one:

:wink:[/tab]

James, in what respect does putting on makeup (which I never use except for lipstick and I suppose that you do not either 8-[ ) and/or a mask hurt?
There IS a difference, Jimmy.
There is pain involved in getting a tattoo, for some less ~ for some more ~ depending on your pain threshold.

I don’t care if people care about me. I care about myself.

The motivation for getting a tattoo is all over the map. Some people what want to mark an event or person or religious/political position. Or just to have art on their body.