One Hundred Dollar Shoes

Bangkok -- 01/10/2002 

You can't find yourself in Bangkok.  If you come here looking for some spirituality, or some sense of understanding you will find yourself hollow and lacking.  Hollow because there is no spirituality in hedonism and lacking because there can be no understanding derived from the wholesale pursuit of consumption. 

And yet, for some, the self-imposed image of low circumstance becomes a sort of motif.  The process of moving from one state to another like gas to liquid or liquid to solid – from stationary to active.  At some stage in the journey the seeker has stepped off a jumbo-jet, has lockered their $100 dollar shoes and stowed their brand-name originals. And walking barefoot from the terminal the transformation is nearly complete.  After a couple of furtive glances to ensure that this transmogrification has not been witnessed the ‘seeker’ is on the bus to Banglamphu.  From solid to liquid?

Strangely enough this ritual of invisibility changes nothing.  What the seeker is loathe to understand is that the wall between him and Bangkok goes far deeper than shoes, deeper even than passport—in fact the division is a razor thin line of expectation that enfolds him with the comfort that the rule of poverty does not apply to him.

Without the poverty that forces some to go without proper shoes walking barefoot becomes little more than a choice.  The choice, however is an important one which has it’s roots in technology and warfare(1).  Shoes, and clothing in general, can be seen as a fundamental defense against both nature and enemy.  Take for instance the sentiments, “the clothes make the man” or “walk a mile in another man’s shoes” both of which imply that clothing is either an integral component of character or at least symptomatic of character.    

So then, what of our ‘seeker’ walking barefoot in the streets of Bangkok?  Has he shed his expectation to be free of poverty?  Is he removed from the wealth and position that allows him to jet around the world and take the guise of anything or anyone that he wants to be?  If clothing is a form of technological warfare (against nature and more visceral enemies) than the choice to shed the $100 Nikes and walk barefoot through the dog-dung laden streets of Bangkok represents an ultimate power.  Power based solely on the luxury of choice.   

Notes

1.  In his important treatise on communications theory “War and Peace in the Global Village”, Marshall McLuhan deals with the concept of clothing as weaponry.