plimsoll joy

we are all standing up for something these days, and in doing so, we are stomping on each others toes. and so, our collective toes ache.

we could get steel-toed shoes to protect our toes, but some of us are all enamored with our current shoes or with looking at our toes themselves -- or (not to be too philosophical, but...) the shoes or the toes are the very thing for which we are standing up. 

it's like this: if i am standing up for bare feet, i do not want steel-toed shoes covering the very thing for which i am standing up. nor do i want your steel-toed toes or any otherclad toes standing on my bare toes. watch it, buddy! i am standing up for bare toes - you stand down!

but, that's the conundrum, innit? who should stand down - that's the question. 

if i am standing up for bare feet, and you are standing up for steel-toed shoes, we are fairly diametrically opposed there, see?

now, on one level, it's fine. it's a notoriously free country. wear shoes. don't wear shoes. it's your choice. live and let live! huzzah!

but when you start stepping on my toes, well then we have a problem, buddy. your freedom is encroaching on my freedom. we all have freedom, sure, sure. but the diametrical freedoms cannot, by definition, coexist. they simply cannot. it's a matter of physics, really. i mean, you are all - protect your toes! and i am like - just gerroff 'em ya big galoot. we can't be at the same place at the same time.

now, i am not talking about purposeful toe-stompers here. purposeful toe-stompers are clearly actively violating other people's space, rights, and freedoms. i am talking about inadvertently stepping on each other's toes.

to complicate the matter further, there aren't strict boundaries between stompers and stompees. some days you do the stomping, some days you are the stomped. steel-toed shoe aficionados can be stomped on and barefooters can stomp. it's not as simple as it looks.

and it's easy to say, if you don't like it - leave! but then who gets to live near the froyo shop? 

pluswise, if you only hang out with other barefooters or other steel-toeders, you are going to miss out completely on the joy of the plimsoll. or... well... the plimsollers will tell you there is joy in the plimsoll... it's not an innate joy, no... i didn't mean to imply that is is an innate joy, okay? so calm down. 

everyone just calm down.