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“A traveller! I love his title. A traveler is to be reverenced as such. His profession is the best symbol of our life. Going from–toward; it is the history of every one of us.”

- Henry David Thoreau, first published in The Journal of Henry D. Thoreau (1906)

This is Krissy’s tattoo:

I’ve been wanting another tattoo for a while. With my background of Boy Scouts of America, I always thought I would get the 12 points of the Scout Law on my legs. But while reading through some quotes I found this one. It jumped out at me and I drove straight to the shop. I didn’t care about the cost, I just knew that I had to have this.

Currently I work for a residential treatment facility for juveniles with duel diagnosis. It’s a tough job, but I feel like I’m making a difference in the world. I’m always telling the youth I work with that it doesn’t matter what your background is or where you’re coming from, but where you’re going and what you do to get there that matters. None of the youth know my history, they just understand that I know what I’m talking about.  But my history and background are not so different from what they are coming from. I try to show them that if you put your mind to it you can pull out of whatever negative, trauma and loss filled past into something grand and amazingly awesome! So really, it’s not where you’re going from but what you’re going toward.

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This post has 6 comments. Add your own.
Harvin - 10 Jan 10 at 00:26:56

Ahh, Thoreau! I love this.

Buddy13 - 11 Jan 10 at 01:11:08

Bad enough that we use a double hyphen for an em dash in text, but now we’re doing it in tattoos? Anyone even passingly familiar with hyphens and dashes sees instantly how silly this looks. I’m mean.

Krissy - 27 Jan 10 at 00:15:41

Harvin- Thanks! You’re appreciated!

Buddy 13- This is how Thoreau wrote this in his poem! I don’t care if you’re mean, what I care about is that you have not read the the poem this comes from and therefore do not understand, care or what have you about how the author wrote his words. Besides, what it means to me is all that matters.

Literary Tattoos | The FontFeed - 29 Jan 10 at 17:56:57

[...] Going from – – Toward : | Henry David Thoreau, first published in The Journal of Henry D. Thoreau (1906). Set in Courier. [...]

MG - 04 May 10 at 19:25:58

It’s okay, buddy, I was going to pick on “duel” diagnosis.

Paige - 28 Jul 10 at 11:55:45

I’d know that Bright Eyes tee anywhere. c: