A Pair of Boots

I was issued this pair of boots roughly three and a half years ago:

They look quite nice from this angle. I am quite proud of that shine.

This is how the sole used to look (this is an identical pair I bought more recently):

This is how the soles of the 3.5 year old pair look now:

They've been through a lot. Until this past summer, when I finally bought another pair to use for the field, these protected my feet while I did the more interesting or difficult things that life occasionally brings me. 

The right boot has a gash from when I was laying barbed wire, and as you can see, the soles of both are utterly destroyed, mostly from drilling in them. They have been ground down at a steep angle from facing movements, columns, etc.

For about an hour and a half every week-day for the past three years, the boots have been ground down. This is the result.

Since no one else's boots demonstrate the same amount of wear on the sole (even people who drill as often/more than I do and who have also kept the same pair of boots for as long/longer), this leads me to produce three possible reasons for their unusual wear and tear:

1. I am special. Turns out the great pains the public school system underwent to convince me of this were worth it, and the destruction of my footwear is the result of a combination of exceptional work ethic and natural charm.

2. I was given a defective pair of boots; a bad batch of rubber was used on the sole/the bonding agent was faulty/the QA team came in late that day/the guy issuing boots didn't like my face/etc. 

3. I have an abrasive personality that naturally corrodes everything I come into contact with. This accelerates the natural entropy that gradually disintegrates everything in the universe. Children fear me and run to their mothers when I pass.

Analysis of these three reasons:

#1 is totally ludicrous because I have discovered that everything I learned in public school is wrong, irrelevant, incomplete, or combinations of the three. Why would this one statement (you are special/unique) be true when everything else is not? That doesn't follow.*

#2 seems very plausible to me. I know next to nothing about shoes, their construction, etc., but I recognize that even exceptional companies produce lemons/duds/etc, and the excess wear that these have seen could be attributed to a sub-par product that slipped through the cracks.

#3 may seem a bit like #1, except that whatever is inherently "special" about my person is negative, vice positive like school would like for me to believe. Given that my peers occasionally use that exact word (abrasive) to describe me, this also may be true. This could also be attributable to body odor.

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*On the off chance any of my hard-working teachers become offended by #1 (I mean, I'd be irritated too if someone told me all of my efforts were for nothing, but hear me out - that is NOT what I am saying). I am of the opinion that it is not possible to teach a person anything - you cannot MAKE their brain accept the information. In the end, the individual must choose to accept what he is hearing/seeing/etc. Learning is ultimately the responsibility of the learner, not the teacher. 

It does not matter how good the teacher is - if the kid doodles during lecture or sleeps through class, he ain't learning anything. Trust me, I know this from experience after waking up with drool on my notes. No amount of money poured into schools will change this fact. 

Until we put collars on our necks that shock us when they detect the transition from alpha to theta waves.

The most valuable thing my teachers taught me over 12 years of public school? How to learn. Although, like I said, this knowledge was incomplete, I'm still figuring that out.

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Sorry, that was a long aside. Back to the boots.

I am emotionally attached to this pair of boots now, even though I don't run in them anymore (it probably would not be good for my stride to run or walk in them for long periods). As I said, I wear other, newer boots if I'm running/hiking/etc. I only wear them to drill in or when people expect my boots to be polished. 

I also fell in love while wearing these boots, but that's a different story I won't go into.

Since they take such a good shine (yes, I will parenthetically brag about this. You can see your reflection in them, for Pete's sake!), I wear them because they look good. I know, it's ironic, but even though boots are ostensibly worn for their utility - those in the military know sometimes it's all about looks and "inspection-readiness."

There's a metaphor there - valuing appearance over function, using the wrong metric to grade performance, etc., but I'll let you draw those out.

I won't have a cause to wear black boots anymore in a couple months, nor will I be drilling everyday anymore, so these will no longer have a purpose. We'll see how I feel about them then.

The road will be the same -

Rough, hard, and cold.

Striding on to lands unnamed

Will I be so bold

To keep my well-worn boots

And my blistered feet

Tied to absolutes

As I walk down that dark street

For there is only one good death

out of many on the ancient path.

Until that Day,

Sojourner