Authenticity Versus Conformity

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We come into this world as spontaneous little creatures. Then, by necessity we learn to temper our individual idiosyncrasies in order to honor group norms. As a kid I learned what I was supposed to do – and what was against the rules. For instance, I knew from a young age that people should wear shoes when walking about town. But shoes have always been against my own inner rules.

My mom was constantly discovering that I had no shoes on just as we were entering some restaurant. “No shirt/no shoes/no service” signs were posted everywhere in the beach town where I grew up, so I was accustomed to Mom’s exasperated tone, “Where are your shoes! Ugh, quick – just walk close behind me so no one will notice your feet!”

If my mom did manage to get me into a restaurant with my shoes on, later as we drove home she’d see that I was once again unshod, “Where are your shoes!” I’d glance down toward my feet, “I don’t know… maybe back under the table? … Behind the chair … in the bathroom?” I was forever being sent around town to locate my discarded shoes.

The hard calluses on the bottoms of my feet were impressive from an early age, and now – after nearly six and a half decades of walking around barefoot – not much can penetrate my built-in foot protection. In the rare case that I do step on something that pokes me, I’ve learned to easily brush it off by shifting my weight to another part of my foot without even breaking stride. Actually, I prefer walking or running down the middle of the street rather than on the sidewalk – because cars blow away debris as they drive by – while sidewalks and roadsides are littered with prickly detritus like gravel or sharp little sticks, broken glass, or gooey wads of chewed gum – yuck.

When I’m walking barefoot, I feel free and more intimately connected to the earth – even if I’m on a human-made surface. Part of this intimacy is feeling the temperature of the surface along with the texture – you’re not going to get this kind of sensory input while wearing shoes. Even late at night – no matter the time of year – roads and paths are significantly cooler near trees than where they’ve been exposed to the sky. On hot days, the black tar-like stuff, used to patch road cracks, gets so hot that it almost burns my feet, but on cold days it radiates a welcome soothing warmth. When I was a kid we lived in west Texas for a while – where summers got so very hot that the tarry stuff on the roads actually melted and stuck all over the bottoms of my feet – and it was hard to get it off later on (when Mom discovered my crusty black soles as I was climbing into clean sheets at bedtime).

A lot of people have reactions when I walk in town barefoot. For one thing I probably look incongruent walking to the bank on a cold day – wearing woolly pants and a down jacket with my furry hat – and nothing at all covering my feet. But this summer and fall I’ve been wearing sundresses with bare legs and bare feet to match. Now that seems like a congruent fashion statement, right? Yet strangers still stop me – and point at my feet.

Sometimes people don’t say a thing – but their body language speaks volumes. Mothers walking young children glance disapprovingly while their kids—in hushed or not-so-hushed voices – point and proclaim, “That lady has no shoes!” I imagine these poor moms trying to explain why I do not have to conform to the shoe rules. Having attempted to socialize my own mutiny-driven sons, I know this dilemma – and would love to hear how different parents handle it once they get out of my earshot!

I regularly go barefoot walking and running in my neighborhood – right down the middle of the road where the surface is clean and smooth. When a car comes I move over to run in the center of the opposite lane, allowing the car to pass by. Sometimes they’ve stopped or slowed down while the driver leans out the window, laughingly stating the obvious, “You’re barefoot!” My bare feet are seldom a neutral topic – they seem to delight, perplex, or offend. I wonder if it’s because bare feet on an otherwise ‘normally’ dressed older woman brings up confusing polarities like the rules versus the rule breakers – or – conformity versus authenticity.

The other day I was gardening in my front yard (barefoot) and a woman walking by said she recognized me, “I’ve seen you walking barefoot around the neighborhood.” I smiled, “Yes, that’s me.” Then she asked quite seriously, “Did you have to get special training for that?”

I laughed to myself as I thought about special training – thinking how we all learned to walk barefoot way back when we were toddlers; we’re born barefoot for goodness sake! But my neighbor got me to thinking about how each of us spends a lifetime sorting out what is natural for us –  discovering what is our own true way of being in the world – versus what is deemed normal by our neighbors or our culture. We’re daily confronted with dilemmas which necessitate a choice between authenticity and conformity – all the way from what we will or won’t put on our feet – to much weightier and stickier issues. Learning to navigate this delicate polarity is the essential special training that life offers us every day.

I’d love to know your thoughts after reading or listening to this blog post. Please consider emailing me with any feedback you have. And thanks so much for being here!