Author: colter

I have…interesting feet. They are sensitive but by no means tender. Raised in rural Arkansas, I have done my share of barefooted living, so I can walk over most anything without major pain. Yet I find that when I walk barefoot I can feel everything intensely. One of the best parts of my day is taking off my shoes when I get home.

I took a walk barefoot outside the office today, and it was great. I started to wonder if shoes in the modern world might be obsolete. Think about this for a moment: shoes were invented a few millennia ago for terrain far more treacherous than the modern world generally provides. How many times in your day do you walk over patches of spiky branches or sharp rocks? Mostly we walk from house to car to building, and it’s a relatively safe and clean path. It might be hot or rough, but this is likely only because our feet are so sensitive from being cooped up in socks and shoes all our lives. Sure the ground is generally unclean, but which is more clean to you – dirt and dust or sweat and fungus? I think my feet smell far worse when they’ve been wrapped in a sock for 9 hours.

Sadly, though, the modern world poses a different set of threats: oil and other chemical toxins. Your average McDonald’s parking lot is probably far more dangerous to the bare foot than any forest. Still, I know that in my daily trek between house, car and office I encounter no major podiatric dangers. For white collar office workers it could happen.

Just something to think about. Go barefoot more often and see what you prefer.

This is why Mike Keneally is my hero. He has a song called “Pride is a Sin” and here is some unpacking of that concept he did in an interview over at seaoftranquility.org:

I think that pride as an emotion or as a way of being, it’s like it cuts off possibilities. It cuts off emotions and feelings. Pride is self … you puff yourself up and it’s like you can’t hear or you can’t feel. And frequently these are hardcore religious people who go on and on about how proud they are. But that’s thing one if you’re going to have any kind of enlightenment is to let go of that shit. Remove yourself from the equation to the best of your ability. Stop being centered on how you feel and how proud you are of your accomplishments. Anything that happens to you is a gift so how can you feel proud of it? Grateful. That’s how I feel about it.

Thanks, Mike. To take it a step further, I think pride is often something that’s only expressed in the face of criticism. Black pride and gay pride are things that only come in opposition to prevailing attacks on their particular cultures. And white pride is something that probably comes from the same thing, but only gets expressed by people who aren’t confident enough in themselves as individuals that they have to identify with a group to compensate for their own deficiencies. However thin you slice it, it’s still baloney. Pride is a sin; everything is a gift so stay humble.

Artist, writer, poet, and Professor of the Humanities Bill Watterson wrote the definitive source text on the Nature of Cool in the late 20th Century. Witness his Zen-like efficiency of line and word.

“What Fun Is It Being Cool If You Can’t Wear a Sombrero?” has been my motto for so long, I’m number 1 and 2 in Yahoo Search for that phrase.