Brushing Shoes and Mindfulness

Reading Time: 4 minutes
Have you considered brushing shoes and mindfulness? I ask because as I have played with the brush, to clear dirty mud off my shoes I have noticed that this is a time consuming task that always takes several minutes, if not half an hour to complete. People stigmatise leaving a muddy trail behind you indoors, but as the last few shoe cleanings have shown, cleaning shoes is more time consuming than cleaning up after muddy shoes, especially when the mud is dry.

People show scorn and derision when they see mud, and yet mud is not bad for health. It makes thing look messy, but we grow food in it. Animals eat straight from the ground, and we use it for huts, and more. Mud is even used in spas to improve skin health and more.

A snow and leaf covered bridge in Autumn

Cleaning mud off of shoes made me think of mindfulness and meditation because clearing mud is a time consuming process. You brush, and bits of mud fly off the shoe, and if its dry then you wear a mask, because a cloud of dust flies off the shoes, onto your clothes, into your eyes, and if you don’t have a mask, into your lungs. It’s important to take precautions.

Brushing works very well with wet mud, as long as you use enough force. When the mud is dry, that’s when the wooden skewer comes into play. That’s when you chisel at the dirt and mud, and loosen it, to fall on the ground, wheter outdoors or in the apartment. When that mud is loose, then you brush, and then with what’s left, you chisel again. You repeat the process until the shoes are clean.

That’s why I think that it should be used as a form of meditation. That’s why I think that, rather than cleaning shoes, to avoid the less intellectual members of society from complaining, you see it as an intellectual relaxation and mindfulness exercise.

I think cleaning muddy shoes is absurd. I think it’s absurd because within seconds of going for another walk they will be filled with mud again. It takes half an hour or more to clean shoes, but the mess that results from cleaning shoes, takes seconds. The notion that cleaners shouldn’t have to clean mud is absurd, because the entire raison d’êtres of cleaners, is to make things look clean.

In the past I used to clean the house before the cleaner came, so that her job would be easier. I have a base level of mess, and every week I had to reset it to zero for the cleaner, so it has nothing to do with not respecting cleaners and their work. It has to do with wasting, or investing time. Cleaning shoes is pointless because shoes are dirty for months at a time during the wetter months.

Old buildings used to have shoe cleaners. they used to have matts so that you could wipe your feet, metal bars so that you could scrape the mud off your shoes, cubbies so that outdoor shoes could be swapped for flip flops and more. If the building has a problem with mud, then a proper mud clearing mattress would make sense.

In the 21st century everyone drives so no one gets dirty shoes. People prefer noise pollution and air pollution to walking. If road paths were clean of mud, if car drivers didn’t drive homicidally close to pedestrians and cyclists, then there would be no exposure to mud.

Ever since childhood I have had muddy shoes because of my walking and adventures, so it was normal for me to drop mud where I sat, whether at school or sometimes at work. Mud is a sign that people are fit and do exercise. Mud is a sign that people were outdoors, rather than eating Al Desko. Mud is a sign that the weather is slightly wet, and that people do not always walk on the cleanest of paths. Mud is part of life, when you walk in all weather, in all seasons, except for summer droughts. Finding mud then is a challenge.

This problem of mud says something positive about me. The rest of the building live sedentary lives. They use the cars to go to do sports, that are clean, and they come home by car. This means that they never have mud on them because that mud has fallen off either in their cars, or it was never on them.

My mud is fresh, from walking rurally and locally two minutes ago. If everyone was like me they would either see the need for better shoe cleaning options or they wouldn’t mind mud in the corridors. It’s because I am alone in my habits that I can’t play ignorant.

My current solution to this problem is a brush and a skewer in the post box. When I get home I unlock the post box, brush my shoes, skewer the more stubborn mud, and step into the building. I have to be like football players, before they return to their changing rooms. That’s where I got my idea for that type of brush.