Barcodes

Firstly, allow me to state the obvious.
I've inked myself, the design being a barcode as seen in the accompanying picture and yes that is my date of birth.

I've put of the idea of tattooing myself for the longest time as I constantly battled with myself to come up with an idea that would remain permanent or well, at least persevere for more than a few years. After rejecting all the obvious guitar references, I'd given up.
Now for the person who constantly lives in fear of being typecast and put into a mould, this design was thought of while listening to music and letting my mind drift away and was finalized in about two seconds. I was inked with it within 12 hours. Now I realize that this is a done and dusted design, with probably half the world inked with the same design.

The barcode is supposed to denote an incapability of breaking away from all the things I want to. My wants being very ambitious, I realize that I'm bounded by twenty five years of upbringing and societal corruption.
I'm just a product. A factory made product, the factory being the society I grew up in and acknowledging the same, I've tattooed a production date on me.

The tattoo also signifies how each of us are special and unique, but only when viewed with an absolute critical eye. A eye capable of understanding the intricacies of my coding. To everyone else, I AM everyone else, a product indistinguishable from another. To a person incapable of reading between the lines and understand what the code means, we're all the same. People will see us as being slightly different as a pattern or a design, but our true meaning will always be hidden, except for a code reader.

Lastly, my tattoo reads slave, a testament to the fact that I am one.
I realize I've always been a slave, am a slave and have to constantly try to fight being one.
I'm a slave to my feeling, my thoughts, my biases, my lack of knowledge, understanding, I'm a slave to myself.

Giving myself freedom from being a slave is an uphill task and a lifelong battle, this tattoo is just a reminder that I can never stop trying.
It shows me that I am currently a slave, But need not live the rest of life as one.