Bare Soles = Happy Souls
- A Barefooter's Diary

...or rather: a longish essay on walking barefoot...????

"Footnotes" about me

(pun intended!!! :))

'My name is Andreas, and I am a barefooter...!'
Doesn't the form of this sentence ring a bell...? Doesn't it sound like a typical cliché sentence - the confession one would expect from an addict or the coming-out phrase someone would utter in a TV talk show...? And what exactly does 'barefooter' mean...?

First of all some bare facts - please forgive the pun - about me:

• Name: Andreas Spring
• E-mail address:
  

  
  ganesha@barefoot-spring.net

• Homepage:

  http://www.barefoot-spring.net/

• born in 1967 in Dinslaken, Germany (a small industrial town north from the northern margin of the Ruhr, population ab. 70,000) - now a resident of Mülheim an der Ruhr.
• 6' 5", ab. 280 lbs. (whew! BIG!!), brown, curly hair (in winter), bald in summer (or rather, between spring and fall), green eyes, beard, glasses.
• Occupation: case handler and assistant to the project coordinator in charge of pulling incoming call statistics, call distribution and reason statistics from our database and forward those (in nice-looking format) to our contractee, plus doing internal statistics on performance of the other team members - still a little QMR work in there as well. The case-handling part is done by issueing repair orders for tenants. All this on behalf of a large realty company. Those who might wonder, if I changed from the call center I worked for to another company: No, I didn't. It's merely again a change in projects and the field of work.
  My previous plan was to graduate to become a teacher for the German equivalent of the Senior High School (or British Grammar School): subjects: English and Social Sciences (a conglomerate subject glued together from Politics, Sociology and Economics). However, I found the gap between the theory of teaching, its possibilities and the reality in school life too wide to continue. So, I'm a college dropout.

• favourite leisure activities and hobbies:
  1. Role-Playing Games - the classic version, pen, paper and a bag of dice :)
  Currently with three characters in the following systems: SpaceMaster, Midgard, GURPS.
  2. Roaming the 'Net...(Multi-User universes, listservs... Been there, done that, liked it, stayed with it and made some NetFriends... :)), also helped in administering two different multi-user gaming universes, namely The Lion King Muck, and ELYSIUM MUD (a now defunct testbed for a Circle-based MUD)
  3. Reading ('real' books and graphic novels... this being the more mature and adult term for 'comics'..., now having discovered a few manga series, that appeal to me: Angel Sanctuary, X, Hellsing and Cowboy Bebop) ,
  4. Naturism, meaning: skinny dipping... (or nude swimming, if you prefer the rather moreneutral term...:)) and being nude in general. There is a distinct difference in feeling between swimming nude and with bathing apparel on your body..try it. Unfortunately, I still haven't found the right place to do that in the colder seasons... for the summer, I have a favourite, secluded and quite private spot at one of the lakes here nearby..., but winter...? I'm still looking for the winter resort for naturists around here... As far as being nude in general is concerned, it just is the most natural and comfortable way of being.
• Some flaws: Well, my overweight, apparently, and yes: I do smoke...!!

• Newest 'addiction' (a healthy one, though): barefooting!! -my favourite way of walking... except for very frosty winter days, I never wear shoes!! - in my spare time, that is.

Barefoot bliss... - studying on campus in the summer sun, showing off with my favourite footwear: none!

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About 'barefooters' and 'barefooting' - two terms to be explained...

Historically, the term barefooters is associated with monks and nuns, especially of the Franciscan order, who walked barefoot to follow St. Francis' teachings and rules about poverty as the right way to live according to the rules of life given in the New Testament... If necessary, they wore simple and thin leather sandals, but not more than that. But the Franciscans are not the only historic example of people walking barefoot...

Depictions on ancient vases, frescæ, tapestries, and various sculptures have shown, that many an ancient culture stood on bare feet... such as the ancient Greek, the Assyrians (ancient Near East), Egypt and the Celts. Proof of this can be found in various places... On a sub-page, linked below aresome depictions showing it clearly

Ancient history on bare feet:

Another ancient people to roam mainly Northern and later Western Europe (and there mainly France, Spain and the British Isles) on bare feet were the Celts. One might argue, that the Assyrians, the ancient Greek and the people of ancient Egypt might have had an easy time walking barefoot in the warm climate of their lands. The Celts, however, partly lived much further to the North, and still preferred to go barefoot during all four seasons, no matter the weather...

Nowadays, 'barefooter' applies to two groups of people:

Barefoot Waterskiers,

Lifestyle barefooters,

Hence, 'barefooting' means either barefoot waterskiing or walking barefoot as a lifestyle choice.