During any given twenty-four hour period, a massive number of things happen, including both good and bad, and natural and human-made disasters. Some of these we can see, hear, or read about on our chosen source of feedback.  Others - for many reasons - are not brought to our attention at all.  One thing is certain.  I cannot keep up with nor wrap my head around everything.   

Our world is changing rapidly in ways we may not have previously imagined.  Glaciers are melting at a much more rapid pace, destroying mountain villages.  People are leaving islands that their ancestors populated hundreds if not thousands of years ago as sea levels rise.  The climate is changing, which alters the world-wide food supply, creating environmental refugees.  And amidst this, AI information farms are consuming energy at such a rapid pace that nuclear power plants are being brought back online and new plants constructed to create energy for the metastasizing entities. Every science fiction novel from Brave New World and 1984,  to 2001: A Space Odyssey are more valid now than when they were published. They are no longer fiction.  What, if anything then, does a pair of shoes have to do with this?  Simply put, they are at the intersection of climate change and AI, while remaining part of what helps human beings survive and do their work.  Even the Tarhumara people who have a tradition of running, sometimes barefooted, use shoes of some ilk.  

As the construction and its detritus continues to collect during the stucco process, I think about how difficult the work is for the men who are doing it, but I also look at the footwear that enables them to do it.  It makes me happy to be living during a time when shoes and footwear are much more comfortable than they were when I was growing up.  Hard leather shoes - including work boots and fashionable dress shoes such as Penny loafers - had a killer break-in period that created multiple blisters and nearly destroyed heals and Achilles tendons.  Even work boots now are almost good to go when you put your foot into them.  From dress to well-worn, these shoes have served their owners well.

stucco work Santa Fe boots 1 stucco work Santa Fe boots 2 stucco work Santa Fe boots 3         

As change rolls through our world, I find myself realizing it is all the more important to be witness to it and appreciate what we have, and what nature continues to give. 

until next Monday,

DB

a passion for the image©