The old tattoo
The dream was this: I would continue to play for the Irish basketball team. I would continue to strive to be the best basketball player I could and then, eventually, become a professional basketball player. The plan was working. I was the first Irish person to be the highest scorer at an international competition. I was the youngest Irish person to play for the senior international team.
But, deep inside me something else was going on.
Yes, basketball was everything to me (or so I thought). But, since I was young, I was drawn towards the mysteries of life. I would bury myself in books about ancient religions, the cosmos, black holes, meditation and anything else I could find. The questions about them in my mind were getting louder and louder as I got older. But, I was a teenager and didn’t have the words to express any of this to anyone.
These were just some of the questions I was wrestling with:
What is this existence about?
What happens to us when we die?
What is happening to us right now as we live?
Who am I?
Who are you?
What are we?
What are thoughts?
And on and on.
So, one day, when I was about 20, I made a big decision. I would leave the world of basketball behind (and my identity as “Níall the basketball player”) and go off and try to find some answers to these big questions.
A little while after, I found myself sitting in a motel room in Virginia Beach, USA. How was I going to start my quest for the truth?
Well, there in the drawer in the motel room, was a bible. Most motels rooms in America have them for some reason. I’m not a Christian, but I decided it was a good place to start.
I read the bible from cover to cover. I found it difficult, violent in parts, confusing and inconsistent. However, within all of that, there were some shining pearls of wisdom. One of the lines I read asked a question: when we find the truth, what will become of us? It perfectly captured what I was trying to do: find the truth.
So, I did what most 20-year-olds would do, I got it tattooed on my arm as a reminder.
My adventures after that took me to many wild and wonderful places in search of the truth. I spent decades searching.
Eventually, I ended up in Bray, Wicklow, a few days ago, sitting in Jekyll and Hyde tattoo studio. It was time for the old tattoo, and all it had done for me, to fade into the background and be replaced with something new, something that reflected the past 20+ years of searching.
As Karl, the gifted tattoo artist, worked his magic on my arm, I felt things shifting. This fading of the old tattoo, and the emergence of the new one, felt like a ritual of sorts. I felt free of the past. I felt free of that motel room in Virginia Beach. I simply felt free again.
The new tattoo isn’t complete yet. It will be a few more weeks before it is. But, it feels like it has a power and energy of its own. It feels like it has always been there. It feel likes me. I’ll include a picture of it below. Please remember though, that it is only 50% complete.
I’m not encouraging people to get tattoos.
But, I am encouraging all of us to find ways that help us feel like ourselves. To find ways of letting go of old symbols, old ways of thinking, old ways of behaving that may not be us anymore. I am encouraging us to do things that we want to do, dress how we want to dress, dance how we want to dance, do what we want to do. Everyone is different. I wanted to get a tattoo of the sea. You will want to do something that reflects you.
What I have learnt from the fading of the old tattoo, and the emergence of the new one, is that when we make that change, it unleashes in us new energy, new direction and new ways of behaving.
And then, everything changes.
