Month: August 2023

If you want to be a Minimalist, you’ve got to be Fit

Barefoot Ken, Leave a comment

169 years later, Thoreau’s commandment still echoes across the surface of Walden Pond — “Simplify. Simplify!”  The logic has stood the test of time.  Seriously, could anyone want more complexity in life?

But that doesn’t mean simplifying is easy.

To simplify means to “make something easier to understand,” according to the first online dictionary definition that popped up when I typed the word into the search bar.  Understanding takes effort.  And time.  Both of which are in short supply.  So simplifying is a good thing — indeed, it’s the key to solving problems.  In this regard, simplify has a similar meaning to compute.  Continue reading “If you want to be a Minimalist, you’ve got to be Fit” →

If you want to be a Minimalist, you’ve got to be Fit

Go Minimalist. Declutter Your Mind

Barefoot Ken, Leave a comment

Minimalism is a modern incarnation of an ancient philosophy — the premise is to simplify.  The minimalist would have you declutter your home.  Buy fewer things.  Save money.  Throw out unneeded stuff and create for yourself extra space and time.

Now let’s talk about decluttering your mind.  The minimalist would say, be skeptical.  About what you hear on the radio or see on TV or read in mainstream and social media.  Beware of experts with financial interests. Let go of outdated ideas.  Discount conventional wisdom and conformist thinking. Let go of your own rationalizations driven by ego and insecurity.  Free yourself from all that mental baggage.

You see, the mind is like a garden that’s gone to seed and needs some weeding.

Or is it?

Continue reading “Go Minimalist. Declutter Your Mind” →

Go Minimalist. Declutter Your Mind

11,000 Miles Barefoot

Barefoot Ken, , Leave a comment

Last fall, reporting on my 10,000th barefoot mile, I commented on a confrontation in a coffee shop, and even today I still recall the young woman’s hazel eyes, above the light-blue surgical mask, glaring with hostility.  Then there was the art museum in Ft. Worth, where a portly security manager dressed in a navy blazer explained, patiently, that “it’s the law.”  Which it’s not.  (Trust me, I do my research.)

But I am nothing if not stubborn.  On the way to 11,000 miles, I made it into both these places without shoes, as well as dozens of other establishments, as part of my participation in the Barefoot Autism Challenge, and as part of my unplanned transition to a mostly barefoot lifestyle.

I don’t track steps, however, so coffee shops and art museums did not contribute to the cumulative total.  Rather, it was running and mountain-climbing that got me to this latest milestone. Continue reading “11,000 Miles Barefoot” →

11,000 Miles Barefoot