Granted, this is a video made by a minimal shoe company, however, in its relatively brief eight minutes, it shares a lot of information I have been trying to share with students for years, and not just about minimal footwear, but also about technology. If my talks in Yin class have not yet inspired you to change your relationship with your shoes then perhaps this video will?
To quote Professor Daniel E Lieberman from the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University “so you are buying technology in the shoe to correct for problems that are caused by the shoe itself.” Well, we are doing this in many other ways as well, using technology to correct for problems caused by technology. I am no Luddite; however, we must use technology skillfully and wisely; otherwise, it creates more harm than good, and when I speak of technology, please keep in mind that agriculture is a kind of technology, the spear is a kind of technology, the bow and arrow are a kind of technology.
It seems to me that right now we are using technology to try to satisfy our wants and desires and to make ourselves comfortable, with the belief that this will ultimately make us happy. However, when you wake up, you see fairly clearly that satisfying desires does not lead to real happiness. So what purpose does technology ultimately play for human beings and how should we be using it?
