The Meaning Behind the Omega

    Since as long as I could remember, I was against tattoos. It wasn’t that I was against the idea of permanence or the concept, but simply the artistic motivation behind it. What gives art its power is not the skill or artistry, but the symbolic meaning that the art represents. Art that is simply decorative it essentially useless. Most tattoos on people I knew fell into this category: the Bad Boy logo, a sunflower, a tribal pattern, etc... Sure they could say, “this sunflower represents the great heights that my morals will rise to as they bloom in the society of indifference,” but let’s face it, the simple reason it was gotten was that “it looked pretty” or “it looked cool”. Yet at 22, I found myself belly up, getting a tattoo of an Omega symbol on my waist.

      Allow me to take a step back.

      The collection of high school videos on my website isn’t nearly the total collection. Unfortunately many have been lost over the years. In our standard “superhero” movies, I was clad as “Black Omega” with my partner, Mary Hathaway, as “White Lightning.” They were cheesy movies of her and I shaking down thugs and righting the wrong in typical Adam West, Batman style. The videos were lost and years later I was in college.

     From my father, I’ve gotten the habit of writing on the mirror in marker. While living in Jacksonville, I had two sliding mirror closet doors that I had written my goals down:

-pass chemistry
-graduate college
-find a quality gf
-compose an 80 minute CD
-get into dental school
-write a self help book on optimism
-raise a family
-“Be a better man today than you were yesterday.”

      During a party I had thrown, a drunken friend wandered into my room and used the marker. Remembering my old “Black Omega” character from the school news, he drew an Omega symbol on the mirror so that it would fall on my chest when I looked into it. I thought it was funny and left it up. Over time, the symbol began to represent all of those goals listed. Throughout the years, the goals shifted, changed, and grew in number and specificity, but my “Be a better man today than you were yesterday,” never changed. It seemed to be one general goal that encompassed them all.

      Years later, I found myself at a major point in my life. In a nutshell, I had no vehicle, no place to live, no one to turn to, and no money to buy food, all because I made a very tough, but ethical choice. For many, this would have been a cross roads, forcing them down a different path, but I refused to give up on my goals. With my last thirty dollars, I had the Omega, which had become the symbol of my life tattooed on my waist. It’s tiny, about the size of a dime, and in a place that most will never see it, simply because it is only for me. It was a constant reminder to not give up no matter what life through at me.

      After a few rough months of rebuilding my life, I had finally gotten through. I lived a modest life, but was back in school and still working toward my goals. I can look at that symbol, “be a better man” and know that it will never be an unfashionable goal of life since it’s potential is limitless. So every day, it’s a reminder that I’m not done and I can always be a little better -- a defining characteristic of my life.