Wednesday discussion of rites of passage and post-industrial society

today after class one of my students asked me if i thought my tattoos would impede my storming of la tour ivoire, and his query elicited a response that somehow segued between the Crusades, rosaries, Vedant philosophy, piercing, and post-industrial capitalism.

i told him that the prevalence of tattoo and piercing culture spoke to something missing in our society, that we had vocational training in lieu of rites of passage, and that perhaps in all the televisions and iPods and blogs and laptops we've lost something along the way.

(Kerouac whispers:

"The Dharma can't be lost,
nothing can be lost on a well-worn path")

midway into my answer, he informed me that his favorite number was 57, and although it's not a prime number, i strongly approve of his irrational affection for a rational number.

(please excuse all further number theory puns)

the conversation was less fractured than this account, and yet i cannot help but feel they are nonetheless of the same essence.

perhaps:

1) the fracture is a matter of form rather than content
2) the loom of insomnia casts its shadow across the night
3) the burden of diachronicity falters as the solstice approaches.

[insert sleep here]