Judge not, lest ye be judged yourself!

Today I was visited by a family member, one I  do indeed love, however one I suffer endless comments  from with regard to my choice of appearance. This has been an on-going thing for quite some time, so firstly I feel the need to state 2 things;
1, I'm not particularly bothered by the opinions of others really.
2, I am aware that I choose to look a certain way and that this may draw comments, I accept this.


That being said, the person I'm mentioning above has stated repeatedly that in their opinion my choices look ''cheap'', ''nasty'' and make me look like a hooker. I'm talking, of course about my tattoo's, yes I do have quite a few, yes I will get several more, I shall probably continue to pierce my face, to stretch various piercings, dye my hair various colours and to generally create my appearance in a way which reflects who I am. 
So the question is, who am i? To be honest, I'm Joe Normal, I'm just a little odd! I get up from my bed, i live in my house, I have a cat,  I see my friends, in other words i have an average bullshit job, an average bullshit life, I like others enjoy art, I just wear mine, where others choose to hang theirs on their walls.
To date I have 17 tattoo's, some are meaningless, I just liked them at the time (however they still represent who I am through the things I have liked at one time or another), some are representative of people I have met, times of my life that have stood out to me and meant something! Not a single one of them makes me a bad person, a hooker, incapable of doing my job well, not a single one of them means I'm violent or a satanist or any other bullshit theories  that the narrow minded people of this world come up with.


Oddly enough during my above ranting I have actually come to find that I feel a certain amount of sympathy toward these people, because the blinkered way they look at the world means they will be able to look at a stunning tattoo and appreciate the hard work that went into creating it, to understand what it means to the person  wearing it. Its harder to do a tattoo, if you fuck up on canvas you can start again, that's not the case on skin. Every tattoo, however silly it may seem, means something to the wearer, and every tattooist who is worthy of the title knows it, that's a hell of a responsibility. Some people will never be able to open their eyes enough to see that, and that is a real shame.
I have more respect for tattooists than people in most other trades (ok, fair enough, I cant draw a straight line with a ruler, I wish I could do what they do). 
In Borneo it is considered a sign of great respect and wealth to be heavily tattooed, not a sign of those considered ''lower in society''


I do find it greatly amusing that these good people of the lord, of the higher classes who think themselves so above it all judge so freely, I wonder what skeletons are in their closet? 
So on that note, yeah ~ in the words of the mighty Metallica Judge not, Lest ye be judged yourself, but if you are insistent on judging, look a bit deeper than skin deep!