Sentio ergo sum

I got a new set of tattoos last night, just before leaving Montreal. Paradise on my right outer wrist/arm, and Sentio ergo sum on my left.

Sentio ergo sum is Latin for “I feel, therefore I am (I exist)”.

The original comes from Cogito ergo sum, a Latin philosophical proposition by René Descartes usually translated into English as “I think, therefore I am”. I decided to alter it to Sentio because I recently began to fear for my ability to feel deeply.

I’ve always been in my feelings, and I’ve always wanted to feel.

I felt deeply and with passion, and always want to feel what I’ve never felt before.

Sometimes I find myself feeling numb and indifferent when I think about, plan for, or imagine the future.

The numbness makes things boring. As if everything around me were mere formalities, or just cogs in a machine chugging along. So mundane and lifeless. As if nothing matters. As if I’m detached. As if I’m somebody, but nobody in particular.

In those times, I yearn to wake up and feel like I exist again. Happiness, sadness, anger, desire, pain, ecstasy. I’m hungry for it all.

I went to the same tattoo shop I went to for my lotus tattoo. They were slightly more painful than the lotus, because of their locations. They are close to my wrist bones, and when the small but sharp waves of pain travel from my skin to my flesh to my bones and then straight to my heart, each stroke — and with it each unit of pain — plucked at my heart, some times gently, other times violently.

And it felt good.

I’m reading what I just wrote, and I guess I have to admit this... I definitely have a problem.

But that’s okay, right?