Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Break Free

A week ago, I had a tattoo on my right wrist.
"A man chooses, a slave obeys" reads the tattoo, that has a chain in the middle, the one the main character from Bioshock (the videogame that inspired my tattoo) has, but with a broken link instead of the original intact chain.

















                                                                                                                                                                   I love Bioshock, mostly because it's not just a game. It makes you really think at a degree no other game does. It mixes gameplay with narrative in a way no other game ever has; it makes both equally enjoyable, so much that one can argue that it merges them. It really makes you think about choices, in a way only a game can. The point here is not the videogame and especially since I don't want to spoil anything (All three Bioshock games are more than amazing, you should definitely play them) I will not continue to talk about the game.

Here's what I wanted to share with you. I decided to tweet a picture of my tattoo, along with an obvious pun ("here's what you made me do"), to the writer and creative director, Ken Levine, who retweeted it
The tweet really took off, with hundreds of retweets, favorites and people were tweeting about it and it was also retweeted by Irrational Games, the company behind Bioshock.


People started tweeting at me, saying they liked it and wanted to have exactly the same tattoo, with the exception of the occasional assholes who tried to say something smart and hateful.

Let me stop what I am saying for a bit to explain a point that you need to understand in order to continue reading. I always wanted to have a tattoo on one of my arms/wrists, but I was afraid to do it. Afraid of what other people would think of me if I had a visible tattoo, afraid that I wouldn't be able go get a job, etc. That was the story I told myself. But as time passed, the idea became more compelling to me. I was afraid to do it. So I had to face my fear. I vowed to never have a tattoo without a special meaning; and this one was the perfect example. Not only because I wanted to show love to the Bioshock universe, but most importantly because to me it symbolizes my ultimate freedom and my choices. Facing my fears. And what better way is there to display such a thing, if not for the fear itself? That's why I chose to have that exact tattoo, in that exact spot.
Again, the point in this post is not the tattoo or Bioshock or Twitter or anything of the sort.
The point is that we are all so afraid of being who we really are, so afraid to do what we want, because the world wants to keep us small. The world, our society, our family want us to be a certain way. So, we end up spending our whole lives, being afraid, letting people belittle us, letting them guide our decisions. We choose to live in fear because we don't feel we got what it takes to face it. I'll tell you the same thing I told someone on twitter who wants to get the same tattoo, but is scared.



Again, this is not about tattoos. It's about us. Who we are. Where we are going, as people. It's 2014 and people still see things as small as tattoos as something that show who you are, if you're a nice person or a killer or something. They still think that getting a job is a matter of having tattoos or not.  They still let things that are outside of themselves seem too important, instead of realizing that all valuable things in our lives are within us.
What I want to say is that we don't get to live forever. We have a journey. I believe that on our journey, we must decide to take our own paths, make our own choices. No matter what anyone says or thinks. If you are living a life just to please everyone else, you won't ever be happy.
Stop being afraid!
Are you afraid? Go do the things that scare you; it will make you feel more powerful than ever.
What I hope to do is help people break free of what's holding them back, in order to really live the lives they want for themselves. This is what I want to dedicate my life to, helping people, inspiring them, making them think for themselves, as the game that inspired this tattoo makes you think about choices.

The tattoo is not important to me. I didn't have it just so I can show it to people. I did it because I want to be who I truly am. Whether I chose to have it as a tattoo or not, it doesn't matter.
What matter is what I really believe, deep inside of me. Not what is showing on the outside.
Thank you for reading this and remember;
"We all make choices, but in the end, our choices make us."
~Bioshock~



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