Breaking In Your Shoes

The Departure

On a beautiful summer afternoon, you decide to take a walk in the forest with your faithful four-legged companion. As soon as you arrive at the trail, you feel as giddy as a 14-year-old girl watching the Despacito video. Fido, fidgeting in the car's trunk, responds to your enthusiasm by smearing your rear window with his drooling slobber. The weather is mild, you feel light, everything seems perfect!

The Plan

You've just invested $600 in a pair of hiking boots and you're eager to try them out. True to form, Fido wastes no time scouting ahead on this trail he knows by nose. The conditions are ideal and you feel there's no greater happiness than being outdoors in nature with your faithful companion. A sly smile crosses your face when you catch your feet launching into a puddle like when you were 4 years old. You still have fresh in your memory the sales pitch from the young salesman who convinced you to invest this astronomical amount by assuring you that the waterproofing of these shoes is "top-notch." Already tempted to give in to this essential comfort element for the seasoned hiker that you are, the salesman had finished you off with this ultimate argument: "Plus, they breathe!" You watch your dog splashing happily in the mud and smile even more at the thought that humans are such intelligent beings to have invented these wonderful things that protect your feet.

The Encounter

But suddenly, Fido stops in the middle of the trail. His body stiffens, his ears perk up and he looks at you to confirm if it's worth growling. You hear nothing, but you know there's something, right ahead, someone's approaching but making almost no noise. You try to reassure yourself by thinking it's another hiker, as we often encounter. Then, you make out a silhouette through the branches and your heartbeat slows: it's a human, that's already something! But the closer he gets, the more this strange feeling rises in you. There's something different, something "not normal" about his gait. He moves forward as if floating in the air like a levitating fakir. Yet, Fido doesn't seem to fear him, as he heads eagerly toward the stranger coming from the opposite direction. You try to call your companion back, but in vain. It's as if your pup has just met his soulmate, he's trembling with excitement. From afar, the man seems elderly, but the closer you get, the harder it is to gauge his age. By the way he shows familiarity with Fido, you conclude that he loves animals. This observation should have relieved you, but your premonition persists, there's something off about him.

The Shock

Looking him over, you don't perceive anything particularly threatening. He's wearing khaki shorts and an adventurer's hat à la Indiana Jones. His windbreaker seems superfluous for this time of year, and his ease with your pup stirs a hint of jealousy in you, but no detail justifies this horrible premonition that made you doubt your mental state. You extend your hand with a smile, he seems friendly after all:

• Hello, you seem comfortable with animals!

Under the wide brim of his hat, his large blue eyes pierce your gaze. He returns your smile.

• I wasn't before.

Then, that's when you notice... The horror! The man is barefoot! How can someone be so reckless — or destitute — as to undertake a forest hike with nothing on their feet! He notices your incredulous fish-out-of-water look and responds with an engaged gesture, extending his hand:

• Serge, pleased to meet you... don't worry about my feet, I'm used to it.
• Strange habit!
• That's what I thought until I tried it. Now, it's wearing shoes that I find strange.

The Lesson

Your barefoot Indiana Jones launches into a most unusual explanation about a phenomenon that's gaining more and more momentum called grounding. He mentions that the principle is to reconnect with the earth's energies from which we've cut ourselves off by isolating our feet in synthetic materials — like $600 shoes. Serge even goes so far as to claim that walking barefoot directly on the ground stimulates the body's vital functions. The earth produces electrolytes that fuel our body's various systems by stimulating them through acupuncture meridians. The effect is more than invigorating, it's supposedly curative. Serge claims to have cured his asthma since he started walking practically everywhere without shoes.

A bit unsettled by your encounter with Serge, you cut your hike short to head straight home and consult the Google oracle, to learn more about this intriguing phenomenon.

The Evidence

While your fingers race across the keyboard like a juiced-up sprinter, you learn that grounding is neither a new age practice nor a genetic vestige of indigenous descent, but rather a scientific certainty corroborated by dozens of studies. The Earth is magnetic and produces negative ions that can be captured by the body. These negative charges circulating freely in the body come into contact with damaged cells and regenerate them. The human nervous system is a magnetic network and, like the power lines that run through our cities, part of it must have a connection (ground) with the earth to preserve us from damage. Grounding is therefore an instinctive survival strategy used by our body for millions of years! Humans have always evolved using this natural electrical current to heal themselves... Imagine the bill if Hydro had patented the process!

But in the 1960s, man discovered synthetic materials and hastened to wrap his feet with them. Similarly, man no longer sleeps directly on the ground, so he cannot assimilate the benefits of this charge during the restorative phase of sleep. In short, having cut himself off from this connection to the earth, it's no wonder he has denatured his vital needs. In an instant, connections fire in your brain like fireworks on Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day: processed food, food allergies, pollution, cancer, everything amplified starting in the 1960s...

The Transformation

Now freed from ignorance, you adopt a new attitude. You think back to Serge and his fulfilled look when he left you on that beautiful trail you appreciate so much. Lightning suddenly strikes: you rush to find the receipt with the intention of getting a refund for those shoes that were supposed to make you superhuman. You already imagine the little salesman's face when you give him the reason for this return:

• I claim the inalienable right to stay connected to my nurturing mother. The one who made me what I am and who continues to watch over me with her kindness. I now refuse to cut myself off from these bonds that make me an element of nature. I was born from the earth, and will die in her bosom.

No, really, you can't wait to try those shoes you received at birth...