Everything You Know Is Wrong

Photo by rick via flickr

I should start a series by the title of this blog post to enumerate all the wisdom I've amassed in my short life about things I took to believe as true but really aren't. Add to this truths about beekeeping and running shoes. I'll explain that in a bit.

Some of the biggest lies I learned and adhered to in my life are the ones everyone seemed to repeat like brainless zombies. These lies become part of the fabric of one's life and understanding so you don't bother to question them. It is almost as if your brain is not capable of questioning some oft-repeated truism like "Dieting helps you lose weight." Want to have your mind blown (and stop thinking diets work)? Immediately buy and read Marc David's "Slow Down Diet" and you'll realize all your headless-chicken running and fake-food eating is making you either: a) permanently fat b) permanently crazy (even if you have managed to become skinny via dieting).

Of course, I like to give humanity some credit, and I assert we are not headless chickens or zombies. I believe that if we only try even the tiniest bit, the faculty of reason via rational thought processes and scientific inquiry can restore our minds. Oddly enough, I also assert that this kind of scientific and seemingly detached rational thought can serve to awaken a deeper inner wisdom. (Psychic benefits or so-called spirituality as the kids like to say these days.) This is because I think we get so used to ignoring our inner signals for things like hunger, comfort, and spiritual sustenance and look to others to tell us how to look, feel, think and act, we ignore some pretty incredible metaphysical stuff of which I know little but am pretty certain exists.

So. Beekeeping and running shoes (or lack thereof).

This post via Homegrown Evolution is fabulous and should be read in its entirety. But here's a few excerpts,

Beekeeper Kirk Anderson has a simple message, let bees be bees. Let them form their own comb, raise their own queens and generally go about doing what they want to do. In short, work with nature rather than try to control her. "Duh," one might say, but Kirk's beekeeping method just so happens to run counter to a hundred years of conventional beekeeping practices and "expert" advice. Kirk calls his method "backwards beekeeping" after Charles Martin Simon's eloquent essay, "Principles of Beekeeping Backwards." Simon's essay is essential reading, in my opinion, even if you have no interest in bees. It gets you thinking about what other things the so-called experts might be wrong about.

How about shoes for instance?

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I was addicted to running throughout my 30s until a series of injuries in recent years, arthritis in the knees and plantar fasciitis, a painful inflammation of connective tissue on the bottom of the foot, effectively ended my happy morning runs. In the case of plantar fasciitis the doctors and physical therapists I consulted all said the same thing, that I should wear shoes with arch supports at all times, even around the house. A routine of stretching, incessant shoe wearing and abstaining from running beat back the pain for a year or so. But then it returned for no good reason.

Desperate and with nothing to lose, I decided to VERY slowly adjust to not wearing shoes. I gradually wore them less and less around the house. I began to feel a noticeable difference immediately. My feet felt stronger. In the past few weeks I've begun to carefully transition to running barefoot. I'm using a program adapted from a book, Run Less, Run Faster: minus all the advice about shoes.

Read the rest of the post at Homegrown Evolution if you are even marginally interested in the babbling I have excused as a post here. And enjoy being "backwards" - it's a good place to be.