Barefooting is much more than walking around unshod.

A barefoot mind is much more than using your brain.

Barefooting is a way to walk through the world of the everyday.  It’s a joyous way that makes you aware of where you are right at this moment.  It brings health and heightened awareness to every system in your body.

A barefoot mind is a way to wisely think about the world of the everyday and your place (and others) within it.  A barefoot mind brings clarity to what’s happening now and where it may likely lead.  A barefoot mind is interested in accurate facts, but more importantly the truthful facts which bring real color out of programmed ashen-gray sketches of rhetorical “truth.”

Just like people don’t like to see you walking around barefoot, they don’t like you upsetting the apple-cart of their programmed thinking.  Often, you will be greeted with snarks and snubs and raised eyebrows.  You will be thrown out of places without any reason whatsoever.  Simply because you are barefoot.  Simply because you reveal a barefoot mind.  Need any proof of the latter?  Just ask Jesus of Nazareth.  Just ask Socrates.  If you need proof of the former, take your shoes off and walk through a Target or a chain grocery store.  (Well, you might say, it’s unsanitary.  Is it really?  How any more unsanitary than the sole of a shoe that’s never been or rarely washed is it?  In fact, your feet would be cleaner by far as you avoid the nasty stuff because you watch where you’re walking, unlike those with shoes.  And THAT’S how a barefoot mind considers things.)

Yet…

Just like barefooting, you find that when you work at having a barefoot mind, you can’t believe you didn’t do this before.  You realize there are so few reasons to believe the official lines and truths – to have shoes on your thinking as I put it – you discover you want to take the shoes off your thinking more and more and feel what it’s like to think your own thoughts and make your own decisions.  To walk/think in the cool summer grass and the fine winter snow and have joy in the experience of it all.

You find that, like barefooting, having a barefoot mind allows you to travel farther because it’s actually an enjoyable experience rather than simply getting along from point A to point B.  You find that you are more gracious and humble with others because you see things much clearer and deeper.  It’s not a pity you develop or have for others, but a true understanding of their indoctrinated state… because you were once there yourself.

So… let’s take the shoes off our thinking… maybe even the shoes off our feet… and walk joyously together across this sometimes smooth, often rocky, playing field called life.

– Riverpilot64