Looking down at my shoes, I cannot help but remark at how they feel around my ankles. Grey, knitted, comfortable. Like socks, but shoes. Then I smile and congratulate myself on my ability to tie my laces, even if it is a double knot. Sometimes I wish my foot wasn’t so fat, I much prefer a single knot. But conspiring against my wishes are two fat feet with weird arched toes that look like I’ve kicked too many tyres, as my wife so happily points out. Sometimes, I’ll notice a person’s shoe laces. It’s pretty easy to tell when a person has tied them fresh or if they have been intact, strangled tight without a breath of air, for the 725th day straight. Laced up slip-ons. How do you tell? Just check out the back of their shoes and you’ll no doubt see signs of the struggle to rengage the foot without impacting the integrity of those pre-tied laces. Age lines, stretch marks, discolouration – I wonder if there is such a thing as Botox for the back of your shoe? Imagine how much time they saved? I guarantee no person has even used the excuse for being late because they got stuck tying their shoe laces.
The struggle is real
Many a good shoe has died before their time because we perceive the simple task of tying our shoe laces every day as too menial or time consuming. But I digress, back to the beauty of the single knot. Every so often, I test the limits. I live on the edge. Single knot baby and proud. Then disaster strikes, laces explode, in the deafening sound of plastic hitting the tarmac, aglets to the floor. I will knot be defeated (oh wow you should probably stop reading now, save yourself). Usually, after the third re-tieing, I give up. Was I doing it wrong? Have I been living in shoe lace tying denial? Was I no longer the master of my shoes? I have even tried the reverse tie method from this interesting little TED talk. How the small things in life, that we take for granted were at one point in our lives a source of great struggle. Take for instance learning to tie a shoe lace. The dexterity and coordination required to achieve such a monumental task…
What does that say about your IQ?
Must be over 20 at least. Congratulations, Darwinism hasn’t struck yet. There are of course other challenges we had to overcome – moving from crawling to walking to running; riding a bike; the difference between hot and cold; learning to speak, to read, to write (well I’m still trying to figure that out – the suggestion box is open); basic maths like addition and subtraction. Although, I think though we forget how to subtract. As we grow older, our lives without much effort, become more intricate. More complex. Full of addition, multiplication and exponential growth. I’m not sure it’s a good thing? In all this complexity, I scratch my head…
What was it that I was trying to achieve in the first place?
Ah yes, if I think about it, I can remember when I first nailed the skills of tying my shoes. I was at my Grandad’s home in Padbury. He was a remarkable man, a brave soldier who enlisted in the British army at age 19. He fought in the Second World War and was a recepient of a medal for bravery from King George. He taught me how to tie my shoes. Unfortunately he passed away before I could really get to know him as an adult, but in my young mind I remember how he used to pride himself on doing the simple things well. No doubt discipline drilled into him from his Army Days, never to be forgotten.
Do the simple things well
Not embraced by myself. I always thought the more complex the skill, the more successful or valuable you were to society. I am very much guilty of neglecting the simple things as being too mundane and rudimentary. Instead I would brush the necessary skills aside – that’s bloody easy matey, no need to worry about it. Take for instance how to light a fire – it took me 31 years to figure that one out, but it was out of necessity. Still, there’s so many simple things I’m sure I would struggle with – fixing a tap, basic maintenance on my car, looking after a garden, changing a tyre, navigating without a compass or map (a real man, eh). I could be here a while so I’ll stop right there, maybe I’ve lost track of what I was trying to say.
Where was I?
That’s right my shoes, start with the shoes. You know how to tie your laces and you know what, that’s simplicity and that is success. I’m not sure what else to say except that I’m confused, and no doubt you are too, if you happen to stumble across this piece of nonsense (thanks for reading mum). But for me it is important, what started as a random thought about my shoes quickly evolved into a realisation that I infact pride myself on being able to handle more complex situations but that is actually a cause of great struggle.
Simplicity is success
I long for simplicity, for the single knot, but instead I am pulled down the rabbit hole of complexity. I am fighting though, and it all starts with practice. So I practice. I practice tying my laces every day – and at the end of the day at least I can say I achieved that.