"A tradition without intelligence is not worth having" T.S. Eliot

As much as I love my homeboy and fellow Leo Churchill, I'm going to have to roll with T.S. Eliot on this one. Only two generations removed from Quechua tribes left over from the Incan empire in Ecuador, I know a thing or two about nonsensical tradition. My grandfather left a tribe in Alausi because he felt things like nose piercings and ear gauges were pointless and barbaric, just to come to America where today my best friend since sixth grade has an inch gauge in each ear and his septum pierced. He traded bone for metal and was simply disappointed. "They call us savages!" he always said as he would walk by St. Marks. "At least in Alausi they wouldn't charge you because it had meaning; You can't put a price on a symbol." I can see now that he's older he'd rather have the bone than the metal, the dirt instead of rock, the handwoven headdress to the Alfani shoes, and the jungles of Ecuador suddenly seem to be bigger than he remembered; Bigger than any skyscraper in the entirety of the concrete jungle. It's sad to see someone so out of place. Maybe it's the jazz music in the other room, maybe it's because we're both Leos, but I think I agree with Churchill after all...