Today Professor Kristina Campos (the lady who announces the winners at TCSIT. Yes, the "one clap" lady) gave the second Cornerstone lecture, titled "Walk In My Shoes." On stage, she had three different pairs of shoes: one of a small child, one that looked like business shoes, and a pair of TOMS with the ACU logo on the front. I recognized that the TOMS belonged to the new president of ACU.
Campos coupled her talk with an episode of "30 Days," the show that we frequently watched in Weathers' class. This one was about a border patrolman who went to live with an illegal family for a month. Each one of Spurlock's shows fascinate me, because it juxtaposes people with polar opposite ideologies.
Campos talked primarily about empathy and narrative. She said that humans learn best through stories, and I agree. She illustrated this point by telling the "stories" of the shoes on the stage. The child shoes belonged to her daughter and were worn when she took her first steps. The business shoes actually were worn by an officer who participated in over 500 funerals of fallen soldiers. And as she told these stories, I could picture the scenes she was describing. The details I saw in my head were most likely incorrect, but the stories became personal when I imagined what it looked like. Maybe this is why so many people hate movies that were adapted from books--because the characters don't look like what they had pictured in their heads, the locations are different, and the interactions are changed.
I thought more about the idea that shoes tell stories, and that is quite true. Shoes have a huge part in our lives, because they experience everything we do (unless you roll barefoot). I remember buying the pairs of slip-ons I consistently wear: Mihir and I went to Rack Room Shoes by his house because he wanted to see a friend who worked there, and I needed new shoes. They were buy one get one half off, and they were both twenty bucks. And they are really cool--they have a plaid pattern, one with almost diamond looking figures. I remember wearing them to school, and this guy in my class (a bro who played baseball with whom I had never spoke) told me they were cool as we passed each other in the hall. I don't know why I remember this experience. The diamond patterned pair I labeled in my mind as the "Abby shoes," referring to the girl I had a crush on, because I would only wear them when I knew I was going to see her. I kept them clean that way. Very, very strange behavior looking back that makes me rather embarrassed, but I accept what I did because I felt it important at that time. All this to say, shoes share our experiences.
But not just shoes. I have a shirt that says "I'm A Keeper" that I wore after Karlie Hatchett and I "broke up" (although I don't think we were ever officially dating) freshman year. I have my burgundy backpack that my sister ran over in my high school parking lot. I have my cousin's wedding shirt that says "Beast Feast" on the back, referring to the event where all the males associated with either the groom or the bride got together and barbecued with our shirts off. I feel really bizarre about that one. I have so many items that have memories linked to them, so many mementos of experiences I've had that mean something to me. I now see the necessity for Joel to relinquish every item that has a memory tied to Clementine in "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind"--our lives create memories that have items bearing their significance. That's part of the reason giving movies as gifts is my favorite gift to give, because people love movies not only for the story, but the community in which they watched the movie, the memories of which the film reminds them.
And so, by "walking in someone else's shoes," we are not just putting our feet in a piece of leather--we are trying to empathize with the situations that have made them the person they are, to understand the life they are living. By learning to see other people not only as who they are, but also as a person with a history, most often different than our own, we learn to truly see people as they are. Because if we refuse to attempt to understand people, we stereotype, we assume, we marginalize, and we separate.
This is why I'm not going to try to help Mihir with how he sleeps until I understand it better. His insomnia looks, to me, like it could be easily fixed: stay awake until 9pm, then go to sleep and get up a normal hour, instead of sleeping all throughout the day. Maybe before, he didn't have good sleeping habits, and changing them could help him. Or maybe he has thoughts that keep him up at night (like he's told me before) that can't be put away in order for him to sleep. Maybe he has a condition that can't be cured by responsible habits. And see, I'm not even walking in his shoes; I don't know what it's like to have insomnia. I'm just trying to be understanding and consider the situations that have created him to be this way. It's not bad--it's just different than me.
The people that have shoes that are difficult for me to walk in are the bros. You know, the stereotypical douchebags that only care about video games, sports, drinking, and girls. I don't know how to empathize with the type of life they are living because I think it's petty and worthless. Do I need to empathize with them too?
Therefore, I think Prof. Campos chose a worthy topic to speak about, because people inherently consider the others around them. In doing so, after this speech, people will be more open to stepping out of their TOMS/Chocos/Savile's/Nikes and into someone else's shoes, and hopefully they'll be okay with the foot fungus that remains--a reminder of the lives of others.
This is perfect.
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