Running is your best medicine, and your feet are your best shoes. Humans are excellent long-distance runners thanks to our hunter-gatherer heritage. The COVID-19 comorbidities, i.e. the chronic diseases, including obesity, are sadly the result of the incompatibility between this heritage and our current way of life.
In other words, barefoot running is the smart way to achieve a healthy mind in a healthy body: Mens sana in corpore sano. By the way, rationally speaking, this means for instance that running marathons to keep one’s body mass index (BMI) on the lower side of the recommended range (18.5 kg/m2 to 24.9 kg/m2), is much more useful and relevant than any race medal, record or ranking.
The book: Running Barefoot for Human Survival
Le livre : Courir pieds nus pour sauver les humains
Primitiveness Is the Smartest Weapon Against the Collateral Damage of Progress
Smart primitiveness, i.e. long-distance barefoot running, is ironically the effective weapon against the collateral damage of progress, wealth and comfort, including selfishness, global warming and the preventable chronic diseases.
Human species lived in harmony with nature for three million years. Homo sapiens emerged 200,000 years ago. Some of its individuals later left the normal human habitat and migrated to high latitudes. The first encounter with the cold was a tough experience for the naked tribesmen. So those Cro-Magnons who found a cave, were luckier than those who didn’t. They left the caves when they found out how to protect their body against the cold, and change the hostile environment enough to make it durably habitable. Therefore, progress meant survival.
Some people are now arguing that modern humans have evolved, and therefore they have to wear shoes. They’re right to the extent that we have a smaller brain, we keep increasing our body mass index (BMI) and some people have less melanin. But we’re still vulnerable to the cold, because we remain the same tropical species of hunter-gatherers, and that’s why more and more people are running marathons, despite all the pains and injuries. On the other hand, no naked human, left alone even with enough food in New York Central Park, Chicago Lincoln Park, Paris Bois de Boulogne, Berlin Tiergarten or at the speakers’ corner of London’s Hyde Park, can survive the cold months.
Sadly, the quest for progress and comfort has resulted in overconsumption, increased human tragedies triggered by global warming, and preventable chronic diseases, such as stress, depression, insomnia, fatigue, overweight, obesity, stroke, diabetes, high blood pressure, erectile dysfunction, certain cancers, loss of mobility or cognitive ability, etc., against which doctors and drugs are proving increasingly powerless.
Unsurprisingly, since our reactions have been so far mainly and vainly greenwashing and medication, global warming and preventable chronic diseases are prospering and destroying our health, our comfort and, for some, even their homes.
Enlightened primitiveness, i.e. long-distance barefoot running, is the key to stop overconsumption with no regret, while staying happy and healthy, and efficiently preventing running fatigue, pains and injuries, for free. Running marathons is indeed a reenactment of persistence hunting, which was the ancestral routine human activity to bring food to the camp.
That’s the reason why most finishers proudly exhibit the medals as hunting trophies, and some even instinctively bite them, because the medals represent the animals they have been running after. I feel therefore sorry for those who’re doing marathons for recognition, since running 100 or even 365 marathons in a year, barefoot or with harmful accessories, is just the routine human job, hence nothing to brag about.
So instead showing off, all marathoners should rather humbly lead by example, and commit themselves to helping non-runners to get the motivation and join our community. It’s not about philanthropy, but taking the smart option, since we’re all sitting in the same sinking boat because of global warming. Keeping selfishly arguing, hating or blaming each other isn’t the right way to stay afloat, and, if we persist in doing so, we’ll end up shutting the mouths when our heads start reaching the water level.
Sadly, some individuals who have not yet grasped it, indulge in writing silly comments (curiously with the same misspelling of my first name) or sending stupid malicious links or attachments, as clear evidence of the ongoing shrinking of human brain. Interestingly, the brain of our closest relatives—the chimps—isn’t shrinking. So they know how to climb and jump from one tree to another, and, of course, what and how to eat. They know for instance that bananas are good food, but potato chips are not. They’d therefore “laugh out loud” at those bulky bipedal primates who throw bananas into the field of European football stadiums, which begs a legitimate question: “Who is the ape?”
At the same time all over the world—understandably much more in wealthy countries—innumerable helpless adult humans are seeking advice on what and how to eat, how to run, or what harmful accessories are better for their feet. Unfortunately, but unsurprisingly, as I explain in my book, those who want to lose weight keep increasing their BMI, because the diets are not meant to work for them, and marathon runners are sustaining fatigue, pains and injuries because of the harmful accessories.
Human species lived in harmony with nature for three million years. Homo sapiens emerged 200,000 years ago. Some of its individuals later left the normal human habitat and migrated to high latitudes. The first encounter with the cold was a tough experience for the naked tribesmen. So those Cro-Magnons who found a cave, were luckier than those who didn’t. They left the caves when they found out how to protect their body against the cold, and change the hostile environment enough to make it durably habitable. Therefore, progress meant survival.
Some people are now arguing that modern humans have evolved, and therefore they have to wear shoes. They’re right to the extent that we have a smaller brain, we keep increasing our body mass index (BMI) and some people have less melanin. But we’re still vulnerable to the cold, because we remain the same tropical species of hunter-gatherers, and that’s why more and more people are running marathons, despite all the pains and injuries. On the other hand, no naked human, left alone even with enough food in New York Central Park, Chicago Lincoln Park, Paris Bois de Boulogne, Berlin Tiergarten or at the speakers’ corner of London’s Hyde Park, can survive the cold months.
Sadly, the quest for progress and comfort has resulted in overconsumption, increased human tragedies triggered by global warming, and preventable chronic diseases, such as stress, depression, insomnia, fatigue, overweight, obesity, stroke, diabetes, high blood pressure, erectile dysfunction, certain cancers, loss of mobility or cognitive ability, etc., against which doctors and drugs are proving increasingly powerless.
Unsurprisingly, since our reactions have been so far mainly and vainly greenwashing and medication, global warming and preventable chronic diseases are prospering and destroying our health, our comfort and, for some, even their homes.
Enlightened primitiveness, i.e. long-distance barefoot running, is the key to stop overconsumption with no regret, while staying happy and healthy, and efficiently preventing running fatigue, pains and injuries, for free. Running marathons is indeed a reenactment of persistence hunting, which was the ancestral routine human activity to bring food to the camp.
That’s the reason why most finishers proudly exhibit the medals as hunting trophies, and some even instinctively bite them, because the medals represent the animals they have been running after. I feel therefore sorry for those who’re doing marathons for recognition, since running 100 or even 365 marathons in a year, barefoot or with harmful accessories, is just the routine human job, hence nothing to brag about.
So instead showing off, all marathoners should rather humbly lead by example, and commit themselves to helping non-runners to get the motivation and join our community. It’s not about philanthropy, but taking the smart option, since we’re all sitting in the same sinking boat because of global warming. Keeping selfishly arguing, hating or blaming each other isn’t the right way to stay afloat, and, if we persist in doing so, we’ll end up shutting the mouths when our heads start reaching the water level.
Sadly, some individuals who have not yet grasped it, indulge in writing silly comments (curiously with the same misspelling of my first name) or sending stupid malicious links or attachments, as clear evidence of the ongoing shrinking of human brain. Interestingly, the brain of our closest relatives—the chimps—isn’t shrinking. So they know how to climb and jump from one tree to another, and, of course, what and how to eat. They know for instance that bananas are good food, but potato chips are not. They’d therefore “laugh out loud” at those bulky bipedal primates who throw bananas into the field of European football stadiums, which begs a legitimate question: “Who is the ape?”
At the same time all over the world—understandably much more in wealthy countries—innumerable helpless adult humans are seeking advice on what and how to eat, how to run, or what harmful accessories are better for their feet. Unfortunately, but unsurprisingly, as I explain in my book, those who want to lose weight keep increasing their BMI, because the diets are not meant to work for them, and marathon runners are sustaining fatigue, pains and injuries because of the harmful accessories.