Taijitu
Forum Meta => Archive => General Discussion Archive => Topic started by: Allama on April 12, 2007, 05:39:12 PM
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This thread's purpose is to discuss my personal theory on the effect of shoes on the mind and soul. In short, shoes are evil. Why, you ask? Read on, my dear sir or madam, and you will soon see!
To begin, let us consider the basic differences between a person who wears constricting shoes all the time (a businessman will serve as our example) and a person who goes barefoot (such as a hippie). Our businessman is a stressed-out mess, seeing a life coach, divorcing his wife, and neglecting his children despite being both affluent and successful. The hippie, on the other hand, is content with his life of near-poverty and seeks only personal enlightenment and to follow some psychedelic band around the country.
How could this be? Shoes, my friend! The problem lies with shoes.
You know how your feet feel heavy and sluggish when you experience the sensation of dread or depression? You know how light-headed and floaty you feel when you experience joy or love? This is because negative emotions are heavy and sink downward, eventually reaching your feet, while pleasant ones are light and float towards your head. In our natural state, negative feelings seep out of the pores on the soles of our feet into the ground, safely out of our bodies and allowing us to move on to happier things. Similarly, we don’t become over-happy and suffer recklessness because good feelings seem out into our hair (hence the old wives’ tale about stress causing premature grayness or balding).
When wearing shoes, however, all of our negativity becomes bottled up and stored within. This is why our hippie was so freewheeling and our businessman so unhappy, darling apples! You must realize the very real threat posed by our “modern” society’s growing dependence on shoes!
Go barefoot! Be free! Be happy!
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What I'm curious about, are socks good or bad, because personally, I believe socks promote moral corruption as they can be pretty damn shmexy.
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It depends on what kind of socks we're talking about, here, and if they match. If they're thick, think again. Thin ones, especially with patterns or pictures, are okay (usually when it's chilly) and are even better if mis-matched. Crew socks are right out.
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Knee socks and stockings, disregarding fishnets, are what I prefer.
Actually, that reminds me. I sometimes wear knee socks myself. Pretty strange, eh?
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It's only strange if you wear them with a little schoolgirl outfit.
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Hey! I love my leather military boots and steel-gray knee socks I wear in them! (and no, I don't wear them with school girl outfits)
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Love the stereotyping in the first post, by the way. :P
And I don't usually wear school girl uniforms. Usually.
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But my elephant skin roping boots allow me to kick ass!
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I fully agree with the barefoot philosophy. In fact I spend about as much time as barefoot as possible. Of course come the summer I'm pretty much always in sandals (except for when certain factors require otherwise - work mainly). Even then I'll walk the city streets barefoot and enjoy the weird reactions I get from people. It's said that one of the first things a person judges you by is your shoes - who's to say how true this is, but I have talked to those who claim to use this particular method of character judgment. When you have no shoes people don't know what to make of you. I also go for mismatched socks whenever possible. This also saves the step of having to sort out your socks once you get around to folding your laundry, I just plop a pile of socks on my shelf and play a kind of sock lottery every time I need a pair, I could get matching socks or an irregular mismatch. If people notice this and judge me by my sock choice what does it say that no conscious pattern exists? If a person knew me over a long enough time and noted this whenever I wore socks in their presence would they catch on to the random nature of my sock pairings, or would they be forever baffled because I lived by some code they lacked the mental finesse to crack?
I also have a theory on the barefoot happy thing. When our businessman returns to his Ikea condo and fixes himself a stiff drink he removes his shoes but not his socks (his mind fills with a mental image of foot germs permeating the area rug over the oily feeling fake wood flooring (no more hard wood floors means we're running low on quality trees btw) he leaves his socks on as if this sweat covered foot bags provide some magic protection against the dreaded foot germs which are non-harmful victims of bad PR and the corporate need to sell more products to fight illusionary foes and provided the illusion of improved quality of life. So getting back to the main point he removes his shoes but not his socks and what should b a joyful and relaxing experience is ruined by foot odor, trapped all day in confining shoes his feet sweat and after enough hours of stressful corporate evil begin to stink. He is greeting by this noxious foot odor and is spent into a shame spiral because whenever he does the good act of removing his shoes he gets the negative reaction of foot stench.
The hippie's feet, even when incarcerated in shoes know the relief will come eventually and feel less stress and as such sweat less, as such no foot stink.
Just a further thought on the theory. We should get a government grant to study this phenomenon, spend the money on snack food and beer and then conduct a study with the remaining $8 and a phone book. If done right it'll be fun and further science, at worst it's one more useless piece of governemnt report gaining dust on an obscure shelf.
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the reason shoes are great:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HjIljJd-o0
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the reason shoes are great:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HjIljJd-o0
A compelling argument.
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Just a further thought on the theory. We should get a government grant to study this phenomenon, spend the money on snack food and beer and then conduct a study with the remaining $8 and a phone book. If done right it'll be fun and further science, at worst it's one more useless piece of governemnt report gaining dust on an obscure shelf.
YES! I'm in. When do we start?
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i don't think feet or shoes can be a problem anyway. it will only count if a person has a stereotype about it, im not saying i dont, i think everyone tries to form logical groups to fit any sight. if i see a politician i might think he's serious and boring, but who knows, maybe he's joyful and likes to drink alot and do stupid things. everything is possible, even elephants fly.
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Delfos, if you don't think feet or shoes can be a problem, please, do a 20km march without changing socks or taking your shoes off and then tell me if I'm still wrong when saying that shoes can be a quite serious problem, please ;)
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It entertains me to imagine people trying to figure out if I was serious or not. Was it my true philosophic musings? Satire? Hyperbole?
Who thinks they know - any takers?
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It entertains me to imagine people trying to figure out if I was serious or not. Was it my true philosophic musings? Satire? Hyperbole?
Who thinks they know - any takers?
Can't say I actually know your philosophical stance on the issue but if you're lying you're doing so for a good cause of which I fully support. I'd also like to add the people who smash bottles in the streets are monsters with no interests other than their immediate and incredibly brief momentary gratification on mind. People walk those streets and even with shoes broken glass is not something that helps the condition of the streets in your community.
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Especially not the animal side of the community
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It entertains me to imagine people trying to figure out if I was serious or not. Was it my true philosophic musings? Satire? Hyperbole?
Who thinks they know - any takers?
I will look at how you use a businessman and a hippie in your example. Well, judging again from the head-tilt picture and the fact that you are staring at an online message board for many hours in a day, thus wasting much electricity, and so there by killing animals, I have come to the conclusion that you are not a hippie. But in your fourth paragraph, you use many emotion word, such as a hippie would do. So I believe that you portrayed that you are not a hippie to cover-up the fact that you really are a hippie to through the people who are trying to find out if your serious or not off. This type of thought is of too high of intelligence for a hippie though, so you must not be a hippie, thus you meant to through us off, yet again. You obviously want to make this difficult for us. Well, since you are not a hippie, then I would have to say that you are not serious, since only hippies walk barefoot. But maybe your some like hippie-normal gal hybrid, it is possible that you would walk barefoot. But if you leaned more to the hippie half of you, you wouldn't have had such neat hair and clothing, as shown in you head-tilt photo. So you must be more normal-person than hippie. But, barefoot is the lowest sign of hippiness that there is, meaning that even if you have a little hippie in you, you walk barefoot. Thus I conclude, since you have enough hippiness to walk barefoot, that you are genuinely serious.
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This type of thought is of too high of intelligence for a hippie though.
H ighly
I ntelligent
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P ursuing
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This type of thought is of too high of intelligence for a hippie though.
H ighly
I ntelligent
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P ursuing
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Your dead to me.
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Your dead to me.
That's a tad harsh panda face......
Hippies aren't all bad....
All the time.....
Prolly....
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I have only one thing to say about that...
There is nothing like a couple of heavy mortar salvos to get your blood flowing in the morning ;D
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I love the smell of napalm in the morning. Especially on hippies.
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Well, as I have served as mortar crew I know the preassure from the salvos you fire does wake you up when it passes through your body, it's a very plesant feeling ;D
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H ighly
I ntelligent
P erson
P ursuing
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I think I love you.
...so what am I so afraid of? (couldn't resist the song, sorry loves)
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H ighly
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I think I love you.
...so what am I so afraid of? (couldn't resist the song, sorry loves)
That's the best response I've gotten yet :wb: :drunks:
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Well NOW I know why I've been stressed lately. It's the SHOES! No wonder! My poor, poor unhappy feet. Thank you, dear Allama, for bringing this to our attention.
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Well NOW I know why I've been stressed lately. It's the SHOES! No wonder! My poor, poor unhappy feet. Thank you, dear Allama, for bringing this to our attention.
You're quite welcome, dearie. Kick off those shoes and I promise your worries will seem much less terrible after a while.
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Or change to more spacious ones, sneakers aren't too good to walk around in whole days, and if you wear boots, choose boots that stay on even when you don't tie them above the ankle, and keep that upper part untied, all for your feet :P
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Let's see here. If I support shoes, hippies still won't listen to reason. If I support bare-footedness, some hippies might finally be convinced with this seemingly unanimous support. If this happens, they might go barefoot, get their feet cut on broken glass, and BOOM! One less hippie. I wonder what I should do...
No shoes? What an awesome idea! We should all liberate ourselves from the bondage of capitalism. It's sad that even something as basic as shoes is marketed and sold. Let's boycott them! Let capitalists know they can't force us to wear shoes! Down with the rich people! Proletarians of the world unite for peace, love, drugs, and... all that good stuff. Ra Ra.
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*listens to the steady rise and fall of large numbers of heavy steel-capped boots*
Run hippie! Run!
O:-)
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Let's see here. If I support shoes, hippies still won't listen to reason. If I support bare-footedness, some hippies might finally be convinced with this seemingly unanimous support. If this happens, they might go barefoot, get their feet cut on broken glass, and BOOM! One less hippie. I wonder what I should do...
No shoes? What an awesome idea! We should all liberate ourselves from the bondage of capitalism. It's sad that even something as basic as shoes is marketed and sold. Let's boycott them! Let capitalists know they can't force us to wear shoes! Down with the rich people! Proletarians of the world unite for peace, love, drugs, and... all that good stuff. Ra Ra.
LOL!!
Run, Hippies, RUN! Run and trip on your own beer bottles! :D :whip:
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How nice of you, Marsos. Here's a flower to tuck behind your ear. And have a cup of Red Zinger. But I wouldn't go so far as to ban shoes altogether. Personally, I'd hate to have to walk through a chicken yard in bare feet. And then there's winter. Cold toes are not happy toes. And sandals are a must on hot asphalt when it's hot enough to fry an egg on the sidewalk. So shoes are a compromise, sometimes.
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I like my shoes. Does this mean I will become a greedy self-centered asshole who will pay no attention to the children I may or may not have.
Probably.
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I very much enjoy wearing polished black shoes with a suit looking distinguished and handsome but i walk around the house barefoot, I like to think that I have the best of both worlds.
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Khablan: There is a solution to those problems (though only a few people, such as myself, have the capability to utilize them). In winter, I can walk around barefoot because my feet resemble those of a gigantic hobbit, allowing me to travel with minimal discomfort. When on hot asphalt, I am fortunate to have really thick soles which I am able to burn cigarettes on, so asphalt is no worry of mine. Not sure what to do about the chicken yard, though.
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If this happens, they might go barefoot, get their feet cut on broken glass, and BOOM! One less hippie. I wonder what I should do...
How soft do you think we hippies are? I'd say you should walk a mile in our shoes, but... you know....
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Wheresoever your to hardcore to be a tree hugging hippie.
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If this happens, they might go barefoot, get their feet cut on broken glass, and BOOM! One less hippie. I wonder what I should do...
How soft do you think we hippies are? I'd say you should walk a mile in our shoes, but... you know....
I was referring to cuts of a more serious nature. Despite LSD-induced hallucinations to the contrary, hippies, like any other human, do not have hobbit feet. And as for walking a mile, I'll be glad to. Just don't expect me to march on to Washington. I'm a lapdog of Western Imperialism, not a hippie. By the way, about Hippies:
Humans
Irreverently
Protesting
Precepts
In
Every
Society
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:D :clap: :D
Take that hippies! :-P :trout:
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Here
In
Paradise
People
In
Evolving
States.
Does it mean anything?
No, but so what.
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Holding
Intelligence
Particularly
Pleasantly
In
Each
Soul
It kind-of makes sense.
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HEY!
I
Published
Papers
In
Ecstatic
Shades!
What?
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Here
Is
Perfect
Purpose
In
Existence
Sublimely
Where?
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Hence
Irrigation
Pauses
Progress
In
Endless
Systems
Yes? No? Cookies?
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Oh my God, cookies, yes! I'm eating Milano's right now... *nyaom nyaom*
Herein
Is
Perpetual
Pleasure
In
Exponential
Sums
This is my favorite so far.
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Heroes
Indoctrinated
Positive
Paradoxes
Into
Ever-growing
Stars.
I stopped trying a long time ago.
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You should start a H.I.P.P.I.E. topic in games ::)
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H.I.P.P.I.E.S., you mean?
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Either works
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Actually, that would be cool.
Solnath, Allama, make it so!
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Done (http://forum.taijitu.org/games/acronyms/0/).
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You just had to bring up cookies. Darn it, now where's that last brownie? Shhh... don't tell I ate the last one, I'll never hear the end of it!
Hmm... hobbit feet... might just be the way to go. Give it a year and my soles ought to develop some healthy callouses.
You know, I remember my old Comparative Religions teacher wore huarache sandals with brightly colored socks to class, summer or winter. The man was always mellow and content, no matter what. And it never even occured to me to ask him whether the reason was his feet. That's okay, at least now I know his secret.
Happy
In
Peaceful
Perfection
Including
Existential
Shoelessness
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Happy
In
Peaceful
Perfection
Including
Existential
Shoelessness
Best one, hands down! You totally win.
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Thank you, thank you. (http://www.fancysplace.com/smileys/hippy.gif)
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AAGH!!! Hippie smilie! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Need to wash that from my mind with a few beers... :drunks: :drunks: :drunks: :drunks: :drunks:
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AAGH!!! Hippie smilie! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Need to wash that from my mind with a few beers... :drunks: :drunks: :drunks: :drunks: :drunks:
With ya there, man. That thing fries the brain worse than LSD. It's like a drug... no wonder the hippies use it.
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Poor, poor Talmann. Look how stressed. Relaaaaax, cootchie. Slip your shoes off. Close your eyes. Let all those nasty thoughts drift right out of you. Take some deep cleansing breaths.
And here, have a cookie. Cookies soothe everything. Mine are even good for you. Soy flour, wheat germ, all that good stuff. My kids never knew I was sneaking healthy stuff into them. Not sure cookies go well with beer, though. Better with a nice tall glass of milk.
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Damn hippies...........
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:congrats:
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(Tacolicious) your to hardcore to be a tree hugging hippie.
I hold the hippie philosophy in my heart. I also study the history and have been thinking as to why the first generation of hippies failed so miserably. I believe that with a balanced look at our world and our place in that world we can find a hippie philosophy that works.
It's an idea I'll have to kick around next time I'm at a drum circle
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(Tacolicious) your to hardcore to be a tree hugging hippie.
I hold the hippie philosophy in my heart. I also study the history and have been thinking as to why the first generation of hippies failed so miserably. I believe that with a balanced look at our world and our place in that world we can find a hippie philosophy that works.
It's an idea I'll have to kick around next time I'm at a drum circle
No it can't be true. That's impossible!
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'Fraid so, I'm a hippie philosopher among other things. I walk bare foot, play the Djembe, am a vegetarian and am well read on many topics. Among trying to create an improved hippie philosophy I am also currently working on trying to understand the theory of relativity and to even improve on it, a new economic theory which will correct the current flaws in our economy and reduce the competition rate on our capital medium from it's current 100% standing, writing a book and a few other projects still too early to really talk about.
Like I said:
H ighly
I ntelligent
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P ursuing
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The hippies failed? That would depend on your criteria. They didn't accomplish some of the specific goals that were pursued, but they did accomplish the broader ones. The hippy movement was born out of a general discontent with their parents' way of life and code of ethics. They sought to change people's thinking on whether conformity to the current standards and belief system is as essential as their parents believed or even desirable in every situation. That was the major goal of that time period, and they accomplished it. And that led to huge progress in civil rights, the women's movement, etc.
Obviously, some of the ways the hippie generation experimented with non-conformity were not successful, such as the drug use and free love. But then, fanatics and extreme actions are often used during periods when the masses seek to break free from ingrained schools of thought. Over time, the extremes die off due to implausibility, and a more reasonable compromise takes hold. That's where the real proof of success or failure lies - whether that ends in real improvement or not.
As far as the drug use goes, you have to remember that their parents' generation was very big on alcohol, and it was never acceptable to acknowledge alcohol problems, much less speak of them - one brushed such things under the rug. Papa wasn't drunk, he was "under the weather". The hippies traded the alcohol for drugs. But because their goal was to break free of their parents' strict set of values, they took the other extreme, which was to be extremely open about it.
And because they did bring it out into the open, the masses were suddenly and brutally exposed to the reality of addiction which had been kept mainly hidden until that point. And the result of THAT led to people finally being able to seek help, and educated people on the risks involved. While there are and always will be drug and alcohol addicts, there are fewer now than when it was all kept hush-hush, and there is now help available for both the addicts and their families. So that, too, had a beneficial affect on society in the long run.
What about free love? Do a little research. How many of your very own relatives back in the 50's and early 60's were pregnant when they got married? A startling proportion, actually. It was an acceptable (if quiet) practice for a woman to intentionally get pregnant in order to get her beau to marry her. And affairs while married have always been fairly commonplace. But again, these things were swept under the rug - even to those who were guilty of the same, it was considered highly socially unacceptable. Here again, hippies just decided to bring it out into the open, spurning what they felt was hypocrisy in their parents' generation. As a result, we know a lot more about STD's and how to guard against them, we've seen that polygamy tends not to work out well for most, and an unmarried pregnant woman (as well as the forthcoming child) no longer has to live with a strong stigma attached.
The hippies spawned the natural foods movement, which made people more aware of what they eat and how it can affect their health. That diluted and spread to the general populace, resulting in more research being done. We now know that eating a steady diet of food fried in lard and bacon fat is going to shorten our lifespan, for instance. In turn, that led to an awareness of fitness and the need for regular exercise. Daily life now generally requires less physical exertion than it used to, and so it's becoming increasingly more important to supplement it with planned activity for good health.
Freedom from strict conformity entailed questioning authority. Instead of accepting that our parents, the clergy, the government were always right, the hippies chose to think things through for themselves, speak openly about it, and attempt to change what they felt needed changed. While there were fanatics among them, and people now wouldn't necessarily agree with some of the individual opinions involved back then, the result is that it is far more acceptable now to form our own opinions rather than accept the commonly held beliefs, and to voice our that opinion even when it goes against authority or current standards. We now have far greater freedom of speech and laws to enforce that right. It is now more acceptable (and less risky) to go against the system in order to try to change what we believe needs changed. The hippies paved the way for that.
The hippies brought forth an awareness of ecology, how what we do to our environment in turn affects our lives and our health. That led to stricter laws on toxic waste and similar things. Whether you consider global warming to be of immediate concern or not, you can still appreciate laws against corporations polluting your drinking water with toxins, for instance.
I'd say the hippy movement was pretty successful in the long run.
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:clap: Did you have to make it even longer? O:-) :-P
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'Fraid so, I'm a hippie philosopher among other things. I walk bare foot, play the Djembe, am a vegetarian and am well read on many topics. Among trying to create an improved hippie philosophy I am also currently working on trying to understand the theory of relativity and to even improve on it, a new economic theory which will correct the current flaws in our economy and reduce the competition rate on our capital medium from it's current 100% standing, writing a book and a few other projects still too early to really talk about.
Like I said:
H ighly
I ntelligent
P erson
P ursuing
I nteresting
E ndeavors
It's pretty easy to develop an economic theory. The assumptions on which it has to be based is the hard part. You have to decide on what degree of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation is optimal for the average human, and then operate on that. Then you have to imagine the crappiest marketing situation within the realm of possibility and run your theory through that. No doubt you've thought of this, though. I'm just curious about your basic assumptions. My assumptions on human nature is that humans are basically evil, and are pressured by society to be good. I believe that the best motivation for humans is one that favors personal, measurable, and quick rewards that are in their self-interest.
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My presumption is that everything derives from laziness. To prove my point, I shall go to bed now. Good night.
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Guess I did kinda get on that soapbox. (http://www.fancysplace.com/smileys/imslow.gif)
And I subscribe to the theory that humans are naturally neutral, rather than evil or good. But they're also naturally egocentric at birth. If a person sees that as evil because they've been taught that selfishness is bad, then they'll see human nature as evil. Society and life experience tends to dilute that down to narcissism. Humans learn over time that performing non-egocentric actions can in turn come back to benefit them in the long run. So that supports the theory that the best motivator is one that convinces the person of an easy personal reward.
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I personally prefer the pre hippy beat generation....they were at least honest about their motivations....
Most of the sixties hippys were a bunch of privileged whiners who could afford to be "rebellious" against their parents....
the only person from that whole era I have any respect for is emmet grogan who started the Diggers......
They were the people who started the free health programs...the free crash pads for all the homeless kids who had bought into the fallacy of "Free living" and gone to the Haight only to find the truth was that the hippy philosophy was actually..."What's yours is mine and what's mine is mine..."
And they also started the free food program in the panhandle.....
anyhoo...rant over....for now....
And on the whole shoes thing.....
Wear what is appropriate to your needs....
Dai....
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i like hippies, hippies with communist values sometimes are pathetic, mainly because of the brainwash the Communist Youth does. but all the party youths do it, for example the Portuguese Monarch Youth is totally wicked, they believe in the empire and that we should had never give out our colonies. oh oh oh side note: why dont we believe in imperialism, we already had imperialism!!! it sucks!