Another Tattoo Idea — Best Before 14/06/2020
How different are we from a can of tuna with a best before date?
Recently I had a very anxious moment when I realised my drivers license is expiring in a month (I use my Chinese drivers license to drive in Australia) and I can’t go to China to renew it because of Australian border closure to foreigners due to the pandemic, and I’m on a temporary visa and that means I won’t be able to come back to Australia where I call home for the past 4 years if I leave even though my visa is totally valid.
On top of that, I’m already anxious enough about my visa is also expiring in two month, which I know I can get a working visa because my work is considered valuable by some official documents but still a lot of process to go through. To apply for the visa, I need to prove that my English is good enough, which I’ve done 4 years ago but again the test result has expired so I have to pay to do another test, although I’ve been studying and working in Australia ever since the test and somehow that doesn’t conclude my English skill more than a test.
All of a sudden, all those dates imposed on me makes me feel like I am expiring as a human being, which then lead me to think that I am less a living being and more of a product of a system. As a living thing, I think I am more or less the same in appearance and behaviour yesterday, today or tomorrow. But as a product, all the rules shape me. From one day to the next, I may not be seen capable of driving or legal to be somewhere.
That’s how a best before date tattoo came into my mind. If we all have a expiry date, why pretend we don’t have one?
My other tattoo ideas:
