It's true. I don't. That's not totally true. I wear shoes when I have been openly chastised by people who have some kind of power over me. That's annoying.
I stopped wearing shoes for a number of reasons, the initiating one being that my partner discovered several online writings, statistics, and data speaking to the validity of it. She spent some time telling me that I should go barefoot, and I responded by thinking she was totally bonkers.
The idea rolled around in my head while I watched my partner try to live in the world without shoes. Eventually, some sort of temptation manifested, and I found myself wanting to go a month without shoes. Then I did it. It was easy. I went to work barefoot, I drove barefoot, and I went to the grocery store barefoot. It was a good month.
For most of my life before going barefoot, I suffered from pain in my knees, pain in my hips, and foot fungus. The sudden escape from these problems was mind-blowingly immediate. I was able to run and jog for long distances without any pain. My foot fungus was pretty bad, but it cleared up almost entirely when the shoes came off and my feet were able to see sunlight again. A little diligence with a home remedy and some over the counter medication, and I was free of the foot fungus which had plagued me for my entire life before.
Then came the social backlash. When it was just a unique new thing that I was trying, people were charmed; but as time passed, resentment bubbled up towards my lack of shod feet. I was told at the grocery store that it was illegal to be there without shoes (which it is not). There are web sites devoted to archiving letters from the department of health for each state simply saying that it's not illegal to be barefoot in public.
The bus driver no longer wanted my happy, healthy feet to be exposed on the bus, and told me that I couldn't ride without shoes. Apparently, the bus driver (when I say the bus driver, I am referring to a number of bus drivers with whom I have dealt) was concerned that the bus would somehow be more dangerous for my feet than the concrete sidewalks and streets, and littered apartment complexes I had traversed to get to the bus stop. I am certain that there are no official rules on the bus requiring footwear, but I learned to carry moccasins or flip flops in my purse with me whenever I was about to get on the bus. It is far easier to wear sandals for the thirty seconds it takes to get on the bus than to attempt to win an argument.
The point I'm attempting to make with this long, blurry recollection is that shoes are stupid, Victorian-era hangovers that no one should wear. They cause the deterioration of bone an muscle in the body, they stunt the development of small children, and they fuck up balance. They also screw up one's ability to regulate their body temperature. I used to have consistently cold hands, but now my whole body is well-heated, even when I go outside and stand on ice with my little bare foots!
After my first month going barefoot, we took a vacation to Chicago. I brought sandals, as I was concerned with the amount of litter and general grunge that city brandishes. I walked at least six miles in that city barefoot through lots and lots of broken glass, and my feet were fine. My partner helped me pull a single, tiny piece of glass from my foot one of the nights we were there, but it was far from damaging to my foot, and the next day was spent walking through the city without a problem.
I'm sure there are more things to be said about wearing shoes, like the implications that it can negatively affect brain development, or that it can cause accelerated deterioration of bones and muscles (how many people over 40 do you know with bad hips?), or a million other things. It is a discussion I will have to entertain another day, because this post is just too long already.
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