Here’s a very nice video story from the Cornell Daily Sun, which is the student newspaper at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.
It entitled, “Campus Trends: Students Trek Through Ithaca Without Footwear”.
The whole video is full of wonderful little snippets. It starts out with the female student noting,
It’s a pretty natural thing to not need shoes to protect you from an environment that isn’t going to bite you.
The other person in the story is a male student (who’s also a bit of a tree climber)
He notes (edited slightly for clarity):
Humans have been looking where they step, place their feet, for a long, long time. . . . It’s a thing we’re pretty good at, knowing where our body parts are and being aware of how our bodies are interacting with the environment around us.
Another point he made that I really, really liked was that
It has a lot to do with authority, too. I don’t mean to make it out, “I’m going barefoot and that’s somehow smashing the state.” I don’t have these delusions of grandeur, but it’s this is my connection to the world around me, and I’m not going to let a grouchy librarian tell me how I can or cannot connect to the earth beneath my feet.
By the way, the Cornell library rules are here. They don’t say anything about bare feet, and I cannot find any other code of conduct that might.
So, I imagine that the librarian lost his or her altercation with these two. (But I wouldn’t put it past the library to suddenly create a footwear rule, in retaliation.)
Anyways, here’s the full video. Enjoy.
(PS. Unless you seriously suffer from blood pressure, don’t go to the youtube site and read the comments.)
[H/T: Chuck Waggoner]
Yeah Bob I see what your saying about the comments at the You Tube site. There’s a lot of haters out there.
Yes, this “connect to the earth” idea seems to especially infuriate the public. I always say “I go barefoot because I am more comfortable this way” or “because I like it this way”. BTW I don’t like wearing a watch either.
Bob, you are right. This is a very good article. It shows real college kids and the way that they live, and some like to be barefoot. (College is a good place to be barefoot.)
You can tell that the nice couple are real barefooters too. There feet look healthy (high arches, spread soles, active toes) with real honest dirt on them.