Story: Pink Knot and the Shell on the Shore

So, back to my story about the young man travelling the world, an encapsulation of the pink knot and the shell on the shore: Two things I don't want this story to become are preachy and somehow "against" modernism/rationalism/structuralism. I believe structuralism has its uses, and I don't believe that somehow the dreams of savages are superior to our own -the noble savage ideal is one I reject completely - I am, in fact, more likely to trust in the dreams of modernist scientism than its results - I think they are beautiful, worthwhile dreams. So I don't want to criticize them. But I do want to bring up the joy of metaphor, because I think metaphors, and their mis-application does lead to a fair amount of the pain and bad philosophy in the world. So, there's definitely a struggle there, for me as a writer at least. Hopefully one I can somewhat transfer to the page.