* Tattoos

My oldest daughter, who ran with the early ‘punk/boarder’ crowd, is now in her 30’s. Like many in her generation, she was and is "into tattoos" and recently told me, again, that they’re her form of self expression, "just like writing is yours, dad." We have had several discussions about tattoos over the years, but she really never "won" one of them, in my 'dad-opinion' of course, until that last observation and correlation was pointed out.

Scary.

Blogging, writing occasional OpEds for the local paper, dropping a comment below an online news item, posts on FaceBook and other social networking places; even just sending emails in a world where every expression of self will live forever, really is electronic tattooing. It's fun, if you're into it, but the net result can't be positive, since one's contributions are fixed in time and people change. And God only know's what's in the ink.

I've been "online" since before the 'Net was browser-capable, thanks to a friend and fellow broadcast engineer who introduced me to early "BBS" systems and the text-based Internet back in the 1980's. Computing itself, at the personal level, was brand new in those days and the ability to network was simply amazing to me then.

The older I get, though, the weirder life becomes.  I'm not sure if all this online stuff is worth a damn anymore.