- The Never-Told Story -
(Go barefoot if you want!!)
For most of
us who have decided to spend most or all of our time barefoot and do our usual
activities, it was not a trivial thing to adopt such a lifestyle. Not for lack
of desire, because we practically always had it, but for not seeing ourselves
reflected and multiplied in the sufficient number of individuals that confirmed
its social legitimacy: a mere demographic detail, although of ideological
consequences.
Already in
the first article of this series on the Cultural History of Barefooting,
entitled DESCALZOS EN LA CIUDAD (Barefoot in the City), I
wrote that just a little over a generation ago, things were very different and
rather better balanced, allowing many more people to express themselves in this
way.
But since
then, things were rearranging - or distorting? - in such a way that now weighs
a strange modesty on this practice once of the most natural, to the extent of having
created most unlikely myths about the dangers of going just barefoot.
They are
adverse circumstances that can become insurmountable for those especially shy,
who must resign themselves to being closet
barefooters or, at the most, only in
very special and restricted environments or occasions, such as basically
private meetings or hikes with similar people, or public massive New Age or
ecologist music festivals, in which barefooting has a place, which is not bad,
but that doesn't lead the aspirant to evolve in their practice.
What to do
then? The answer can only be one: DO IT
WITH OWN STYLE, that is, by printing a very personal stamp on what is done,
in frank self-assertion against the moral (since customs is about) prejudices and conditioning
generalized by formal and informal propaganda, exactly as in Politics. (As in
this one, it’s also a question of Power.)
This
implies developing an IDEOLOGY that accounts for both the reasons and the
objectives for which one departs from the mass to make their own way - in this
case, barefoot. It is not a matter of convincing anyone, but of being clear
about the project that is in mind so as not to deviate or, if so, recover it as
soon as possible.
Welcome all
external support and accompaniment, although we ourselves must define our goals
and breaks, according to our own evaluation and understanding of the process,
which requires a good amount of REFLECTION,
as with Art in general ... And there are a lot of art in generating a style!
In short,
in this matter of barefooting, as in any other life project worthwhile, it is
not about falling into self-indulgency and staying in the first steps, somewhat
narcissistic and semi-private, but going beyond the accepted -or tolerated- level so far and establish oneself as a member
of society with all his (her) rights and own convictions in this regard.
Doesn't it seem logical?
So, IF YOU
WANT TO GO BAREFOOT, DO IT WITH YOUR OWN STYLE, not the one your opponents
would like!
Fernando Acosta Reyes
(@ferstarey) is founder of the Investigative Society of the Strange
(SIDLE), professional musician and student of social behavior.
Image: Internet
