This Whole Tattoo Thing

I'm getting a tattoo. The Mrs. just asked me why and I started to answer, but she wasn't listening so I stopped talking. So I'll tell you.

The dragon represents power and spiritual Ascension. However, the fact that the dragons head is angled downward to me represents having seen this enlightened state, but failed at it so far. Next the dragon is ferocious, vicious, merciless and powerful. This is how I've had to be to deal with the past decade of fucked up shit that has happened and that I have had to do. I have hardened from my idealistic younger self to become whatever the hell I am now. I have lost a child, lost friends over money, declared bankruptcy, dealt with all kinds of things that arise when owning a business, had my wife tell me that she was leaving me, working on winning her back (I have no idea how I am doing by the way), gone through deep depression, and so on and so forth.

My general nature is to be trusting, giving, sharing- this has gotten me into a great deal of trouble. This giving nature has been killed and beaten into the ground- not by me- but by having been taken advantage of by people that I was trying to help.

But the dragon is not just merciless. It is wisdom. Earned in blood and sweat. Old, worn like a pair of boots, tired but unrelenting.

I guess you could say that the dragon represents my failings as a human, yet a single minded determination to continue to put one foot in front of the other having learned may lessons along the way from having fucked up so much and been pissed on repeatedly. And to not only continue, but to prevail.

I once was a sensitive, kind person who gave too much of myself to everybody. Kindness is good, but it must be tempered with strength.

So that's what the dragon means.