Branding

I woke up yesterday morning, still feeling slightly wretched. I hate not having a plan, or something to work towards, it makes me feel purposeless. Not cool. I hate to mope for long, I think bad feeling breeds bad feeling. I was sitting in bed, hung-over, tired and miserable, trying to make some sort of sense of the coming year and coming up blank.

Soon though, i remembered that last week, after a particularly annoying day, I had phoned a local tattoo studio and booked an appointment for that morning. After a very brief conversation with mum (where she told me my situation could be worse, i could be Antigone, who "went through some shit", or Creon, who also had it pretty bad, and that if it comes right down to it then maybe the best solution might be to hang myself. I love that woman) I ran to Kemptown to go get my first tattoo.

I decided that i wanted Enthusiasm on my ankle almost 5 years ago. About 2 years ago I asked mum to design it. I wanted her handwriting, and in the post she sent me a piece of paper with Enthusiasm written on it about a hundred times. I picked my favourite and carried that piece of paper everywhere I went for 2 years. I kept putting off getting it done for various reasons, but i never changed my mind about the design or the placement.

"The Greek word enthusiasm (enþúsiasmos) comes from the words enðo(=in, within) and úsia(=essence, entity) therefore, generally the word indicates the impulsive behavior when somebody acts with enthusiasm. "

This past few months for me have been tough. With all the crap that happened during The Crucible, problems during Antigone rehearsals, getting marked down on an important essay by a tutor who didn't even teach the course, and then the loss of the election, it has at times felt like I'm running through water. Getting this done immediately lightened my mood, i left feeling like a new person, i couldn't stop smiling.

"The enthusiastic person is that that believes in her/his capacity to transform the things, believes in her/himself and in the other ones, believes in the force that has to transform the world and her/his own reality."

Isn't it beautiful? I love it so much.