How to know when "Fuck It" is Fake Freedom
Being a grown-ass adult can come in handy
Let's get a tattoo," I cry, drunk on the night air of Oakland spilling through the open window of my friend's car.
Never mind that I don't have any tattoos, haven't done any research, and don't even know what I want or what would be meaningful.
We walk into the sidewalk tattoo shop I'd seen from the street.
Dingy, with fluorescent lights flickering.
Some faded flash and pictures of battleships and hearts with swords through them line the walls.
The tattooer who greets us reeks of whiskey, the odor-from-your-pores indicative of heavy, longtime drinkers.
He sketches up a small dagger. "Like this?" he wants to know.
There is no consent form.
We pay before he inks/
When he does the tattoo, I sit at a dirty table on a metal folding chair.
Euphoria rushes through me.
My dagger is slightly crooked at the end, but oh well.
It feels like I've accomplished something significant that night: I've joined the ranks of the inked, and the grit of the experience charms me.
I feel free.
Fast forward four years. I'm ready for an honest, grown-up tattoo.
I am claiming the space of my left arm for my paternal ancestors: feathers, white pine, and words of poetry I wrote as a child.
The sloppy, dull dagger has to go.
Dio, the artist, works for several hours to incorporate that dagger into the new design, making the dagger blade into the quill of a raven pen.
The shop is beautiful and well-lit.
Dio is sober, collaborative, and present.
While the "fuck it" of the Oakland tattoo had felt great at the moment, it left me with a souvenir of the 'fuck it ' variety.
It's not a treasured piece of art that anchors something vital for me.
The freedom that experience provided hasn't lasted.
I have not received long-term benefits from being a person who got a crappy spontaneous tattoo.
Another example is watching my friend deciding to blow a long run of sobriety in one afternoon.
The initial 'fuck it' led to a meth binge that cost him a lot: job, housing, and several relationships.
The decision to throw away something treasured or hard-earned is made in a 'fuck it' moment.
No one thinks long and hard before deciding to go on a bender.
It's a 'fuck it' based on collapse:
I am done working and need a rest.
I need a break.
I need something different.
A long time ago, when I was a Montessori teacher and studying the work of my first ancestor teacher, I learned an essential truth from her work:
Freedom comes with (and from) responsibility.
We may get a tattoo or engage in a substance, but for absolute freedom, there must be a process of responsible discernment.
More than anything, right now, I want to be aligned.
I can feel internally the difference when what I believe, what I say, what I do, and how I feel are lining up inside.
And when they are not.
As a kid, I had this puzzle called The Missing Link, like a second-gen Rubik's cube.
You had to align the links of four different colors into chains, one chain per color.
You clicked and slid the links until they aligned in a neat chain.
That's what alignment feels like: sliding my internal pieces around until I feel the distinct 'click' of rightness.
All parts of me are in harmony for a decision.
'Fuck It' decisions are too expensive these days.
I long for the wholesome golden thread of being aligned.
No niggling feelings I'm trying hard to ignore, no pieces of me I'm trying to convince to not feel what they feel.
There is no self-deception in alignment, only a quiet listening for what else.
I love myself too much.
Choice Practice: Over the next week, watch for a moment you want to say “Fuck it.” When it happens, pause right there. Get slow and low. Take a breath if you want. Inquire kindly what your system needs right now.
I love this. Thank you.
I've been doing Parts work (IFS) and have a strong Integrity part that has been helping remind me when I am doing something out of alignment. For too long a stretch I had shoved her in a closet rolled up in an old carpet, so we had some healing to do, but things are feeling better now in a really powerful way.
Thanks for your article.