ONLINE ONLY: Comfortably numb

I walk almost everywhere that I go on campus. I don’t have a car or a bike, and I hate waiting for the buses, so walking is my only option. The other day I had to walk from Franklin Hall to Willkie – not a short jaunt by any means.\nI decided to mix it up a little. On the spur of the moment, I kicked off my flip-flops, stuck them in my backpack, and made the 20-minute-or-so walk across campus barefoot. \nThe trip made me think. Walking barefoot inside – which I always do – is one thing, but outside is a whole other beast. I will never have to do it again if I don’t want to. \nBut there are people all over the world who have no choice but to go barefoot. There are people who have no money for shoes, or clothing, or food or any of the other basic necessities that those of us who live in wealthy, “developed” nations take completely for granted.\nWalking on pavement when you’re not wearing shoes is way worse than walking on a trail. Roots and rocks hurt way less than hot asphalt or concrete, and pavement does a number on your heels.\nSurely you know that poverty such as this exists in the world. How could you not, with loudmouth, hippie liberals like me talking about it all the time? But the majority of people in this country – not all, but the majority – have never experienced that sort of poverty. Most people I know have absolutely no idea what it’s like to have to live without something as basic as shoes.\nWhen you walk a long distance without them, you can feel the calluses forming on the soles of your feet as you go.\nA lot of people claim to care about poverty. A lot of people donate money, or write vaguely sarcastic newspaper columns about how we should help the poor. But it’s hard to truly invest yourself in something if you have no way of relating to it. In the protective bubble of the United States, it’s hard to feel that connection unless you really put forth some effort. It takes a lot more than talk to truly change to the world.\nI would never pretend to truly know what it’s like to live in a poor African village. But the miniscule glimpse that I took last week during my barefoot walk across campus had a profound effect on me. It sounds dumb, but it changed how I look at things. I’m not saying everyone should go barefoot, but I think that if more people walked a bit in the shoes of the less fortunate, we would have a better connection to what goes on in the world and perhaps be more active in trying to fix the problems we can fix.