![]() ![]() I always thought the point of those shoeless things are for people who would be afraid to run barefoot because of shards of glass and other painful objects. They’re also super comfortable (if you happen to have a foot shaped like the shoe maker’s concept of what a foot should be) and you feel like a little kid walking around in public places with no shoes on. Not sure I’d recommend them for ultra marathon runners, but they were a good training program, and as others noted, you end up with a lot less blood on the floor after a run if you don’t go “really” barefoot. After a few months with the minimalist shoes, I found I could wear a whole variety of shoes and be fine. I guess the problem was that the corrective shoes were hiding the underdeveloped muscles and just letting me pound away on it until something else hurt rather than forcing me to stop and build the strength and springiness I needed. After a while, my gait was improving and I was developing a lot of strength in my feet and lower legs. After about a quarter of a mile, some muscle somewhere starts screaming for mercy and you stop for the day. The first few trips out with them were enlightening. I went through a lot of different shoes before settling on the Vibram Five Fingers. A Versa might actually be a cheaper, better car, but it doesn’t communicate that you have chosen cheapness as a virtue rather than simply having bought a cheap car. The Smart car is for people who want their vehicle’s cheapness to be pitched as a status symbol. To Alex’s traditionalist sensibilities, more and newer is better, but less is more in a way that matters to customers of Smart. Taking out those seats is the same as Gap fading its jeans: a reason to charge more. The Smart allows the buyer to aggressively not have extra seats. That it seats fewer people, carries less stuff, and has a crappy transmission are all features. Until you look at the price and discover a Nissan Versa sedan is 10% cheaper, seats 150% more people, carries more stuff, gets better fuel economy and has a transmission that doesn’t shift like a drunk 14 year old learning to drive a stick.Īlex misses the point of the Smart. Companies will sell minimalism to you.Īt $13,270 the Smart sounds like a great idea. Becoming Minimalist has over 250,000 monthly readers. Minimalists might not own a lot of stuff, but they sure do own minimalism as an identity. Not owning a car is the pinnacle of your selected game. But perhaps you go further and aggressively disown a car. It is possible that you simply happen to not have a car, particularly if you are young. And doubly so if you have consciously decided against having a car. You are the kid with his arms firmly crossed in the middle of the playground who has been tagged “It” yelling out that you’re not playing. You don’t get to pick whether you play the game. And, yes, your 1995 Mazda 323 functions the same way as the used t-shirt from the thrift store. That’s just a description of what happens. If you want to not consume, companies will invent things to sell you to support that desire. If you want to consume, companies will happily sell you things to consume. They seek to go beyond the game by not buying what they think companies think they are supposed to buy. There is a large and growing segment of the population who want something different than would be considered traditionally best. Others will gravitate towards the Mercedes S-class.īut those are the things you are supposed to want. Some people will guffaw at a Ferrari in favor of the Ram Laramie Longhorn Edition. Luckily, there is no one best identity available. Remember the Tom Hanks bit from You’ve Got Mail about how the variety of choices at Starbucks allows a person to assert their identity through their beverage choice? Companies always seek to invent things to sell to people, even when what people are clamouring for is to be freed of companies. This is a huge business story that escaped notice, but it is not exactly a surprising story. And the minimalist versions often need to be replaced more frequently. Shoe companies appropriated a trend to stop using their product to sell even more shoes. ![]() ![]() (Separated toes are not necessary.) Stop for a moment and appreciate the significance of this. Now, it is hard to find shoes that aren’t “minimalist” in some way. Shoe companies merely figured out how to market shoes for a person to run barefoot in. You might think this would be terrible for shoe companies, but you underestimate the resourcefulness of the modern corporation. Some found that it helped with certain recurring injuries of theirs. Perhaps about fifteen years ago, Americans rediscovered that they could run barefoot. ![]()
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