this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2024
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Showerthoughts

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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The best ones are thoughts that many people can relate to and they find something funny or interesting in regular stuff.

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Humans are bi-pedal animals who walk extensively over long distances. However our feet are soft and not well suited to the task. However dogs, monkeys, and other animals have paws that serve as shoes to protect the feet.

No other mammal has such unprotected - but we are known for walking the farthest distances / nomadic behavior. Is this a joke?

I want paw feet instead of shoes.

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[–] [email protected] 92 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Walk barefoot, toughen up your feet. I prefer having thumbs and hands to paws.

[–] [email protected] 45 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I mean honestly this is the answer. I used to long board barefoot as a teenager and I also ran track. Often ran barefoot. By the time I was 16 I could walk on some glass without bleeding.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

TBF, walking on glass is a fairly common sideshow trick

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago
[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 month ago

Thumbs are cool. I’m talking paw feet

[–] [email protected] 61 points 1 month ago (2 children)

As others have said, you wear shoes, keeping your feet soft. There was a time in my life I walked everywhere, and did it barefoot. My feet became pretty well calloused and protected, to the point I could walk on gravel no problem. Even hot pavement wasn't too bad.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

What life were you living where you walked a lot barefoot?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

If they're anything like my tree hugging mom, then just for kicks I guess.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

And don’t get me started on keratinized dicks

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago
[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I would love to see a picture of your paw feet 😂

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

I have since re-shod myself for many years, losing my rough pads. Unfortunately, I did not take any feet pics in that phase of my life.

[–] [email protected] 39 points 1 month ago

your dog's claws need a trim

[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 month ago (1 children)

It's just you. You're weak, and soft, because you've been trained by society to wear shoes.

There are many people who never wear shoes, and they have tough soles. From indigenous tribes, to modern Olympic athletes.

That said, even your dog can step in sharps and hurt their feet; cuts, thorns, stabs - shoes provide protection that paws and tough soles do not; this is the main reason we wear footwear.

If you're interested in a more back-to-nature approach without giving up extra protection, there are dozens of companies that sell minimalist footwear - in essence, modern moccasins. Vibram is one such, but there are many more. Fitkicks is a cheap version (~$20). Look for "active" and "water shoes."

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Sorry - not true. This dog lives on the couch and has barely set foot outside.

They come with paw feet naturally. I want that too, not to go harden my foot pads by walking on rocks and buying fancy nature shoes

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

They walk around inside barefoot. Despite the cushiness of their surroundings, they nonetheless don’t wear socks and shoes.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

Believe it or not I also don’t wear shoes inside the house 😁

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 month ago

Trees. We went into the trees before we came back down and walked on two feet.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 month ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 month ago (2 children)

That sounds like an invitation to be put on a list.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Well your first problem is using Google.

Gotta use Duck Duck Go + Tor + VPN on a burner phone you can yeet into the middle of international waters when you're done. Make sure to sink the boat while you're there, too. That way, under international law, nobody owns it.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I'd recommend a Boeing spacecraft instead, ocean is still reachable by commoners.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

If you take a Boeing spacecraft, you risk ending up in the ocean anyway.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Google gorilla feet in Minecraft

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

Spray-on shoes!

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 month ago (1 children)

if I had dog hindpaws for feet I'd get rich from onlyfans

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 month ago

The first sketchy plastic surgeon who gives someone paws, fur, a tail or some other weird furry things is going to be very rich...

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Your feet develop this texture if you walk barefoot a lot.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

personal anecdote; I spent a year barefoot as a teen after dropping out of high school. The only time I had anything on my feet was orthodontist visits they said i couldn't go on without flip flops but nowhere else cared.

After about a year of this the callous on the bottom of my feet was so thick i could walk a few hundred meters on summer asphalt without a break and once got a small square of windshield glass embedded in my foot and it just plucked right out and left a square hole, zero pain at all. The pads were about 3/4 cm thick at the ball of my foot and 1/2cm at the heel.

I did this after reading about this effect in a book and wanting to see if it was true and it really was!

edit: also if you try this i should mention that your feet pads turn black and are impossible to clean really just get to a less dark black. most other people find this offputting.

cw: gross, blood

Tap for spoilerdon't read this part if you're squeamish

I would often have to pick tiny rocks and slivers of metal out of my feet when I did this because I walked to my friends house all summer and there was no sidewalk so it was on the streets.

So i had my dad's tools like these little snippers and needle nose pliers to grab the stuff and pull it out. So one day i'm like picking at my toe where the callous is really deep and I see something black embedded in it so I start digging for it. And damn this one is deeper than most I'm snipping into the toe deeper and deeper with the metal snippers and i can't quite reach it and it's starting to get to sensitive tissue.

And that's when I snip some little blood vessel in my toe that i had mistaken for embedded road debris. Ooze not squirt so i suppose it was just a big old capillary but oof it hurt and was a mess and that was the end of my messing around with my feet I started wearing shoes and socks again after that!

Thank you for reading my barefoot memoirs 😂🦶

[–] yeldarb12 12 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Walk around barefoot and you'll get calluses similar to what you want. The more shoes you wear, the fewer calluses you'll get.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Alternatively, line your shoes with sandpaper and toss some gravel in there

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago

Great way of deterring foor fungus, is to not have the skin to begin with.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago (1 children)

You have to walk... barefoot. My feet are messed up and I have some impressive callouses on the balls of my feet. They are a little better after surgery, but recovery sucked. Ultimately, your feet build up protection. Caking on mud probably helped. Animal skins, rudimentary sandals from various plants, and other natural resources could provide extra protection. Unfortunately, we have built an environment made for shoes and evolution is doing the rest. Walking on pavement is not great without shoes. Especially when it bakes. Walking on soil and grass feels a lot better.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 month ago

Walking on some surfaces is downright pleasurable. Dewy morning grass or a dry hard packed dirt trail for instance

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago

we use shoes, this keeps our feet from developing the callouses you see shoeless animals do.

this is a modern human thing, not a genetic human trait.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago

Developmentally, our hands and feet are modifications of the same underlying genetic template, so they’re going to have similar morphology.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago

Same reasons kittens have pink beans for toes. They get roughed up and don't stay pink and cute

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago

I'd argue it's not always comfortable for them. Consider how hot black pavement can get on a summer day. I never make my dog walk across a parking lot when it's been baking under a 100 degree sun. I carry him to a shaded area, at least.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago

Because we are primates, and none of our forest-dwelling ancestors had paws.

Humans developed footwear before we started walking long distances. We didn't evolve for it, we built tools that let us do things we couldn't do before.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago

I want beans too.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

Your feet are not suited for long distance travel because you wear shoes, just walk around a bit without them, you'll grow callouses

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

If that is your foot you should seek a doctor

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago
[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

We do, we gain and then but lose them in the womb. They're called volar pads

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

The answer is evolution. Put shoes on dogs and in few hundred thousand years their paws will be like humans.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago

My feet smell like Fritos