This summer, I got a crying minotaur tattoo. It nests comfortably between my arm and my heart, waiting to reveal itself in the light of warmer days. Originally on the cover of Radiohead’s album Amnesiac, the design I chose is present on multiple pieces in their art book.
I had no idea why I was getting a minotaur tattoo. I knew that it reflected something about me, but I couldn’t wrap my head around what it was yet. Now, I know that tinting my life was the feeling of actually being the minotaur. Every day for the past years, I have been walking hand in hand with the feeling that my existence, and the way my life was unfolding, was just a big misunderstanding. Just like the Minotaur who came into being from the strangest union, I was, and still am, struggling to find my place in the world.
I feel trapped in a labyrinth full of illusions and dead-ends. Everything my childhood self had packaged into a floppy model of the world isn’t sturdy enough. Therefore, I need to start from scratch, and study the world in a new light, the one of an independent individual.
Every day, I see people on auto-pilot, people desperately trying to feed me their wisdom and recipes for success, people who cope, who are holding on however they can, to keep up with the pace of a city that they are addicted to, rationalizing their self-destructive behaviors. In here, walking around aimlessly feels shameful, as if the big unsolved mystery of existence wasn’t affecting each one of us. I feel pressure to have a direction, to make undoubted statements, and to know myself.
I am aware that I am both the aggressor and the victim, just like this crying minotaur. Fortunately, this means that I hold the key to my recovery. I am in my own trap. I’ll use this new space to figure out how to leave it.
