14. Sharayah McDonald- Outside Reading 5

 For my last outside reading, I wanted to focus on Dr. Redick's paper he shared with the class entitled "Feet Forbidden Here". This article peaked my interest, for I had never before thought about my feet being a way to observe the earth. When we speak of the 5 senses of sight, taste, hearing, smelling, and touch, often touch is interpreted only as touch with the hands or fingers. I never even thought about experiencing the world through the sensations in feet, however, it is true that we as humans learn about our world through walking. As the article discusses, the huge highway systems disrupt the natural, indigenous way of reacting with our environment by walking through it. This statement makes me question if we as humans would be more compassionate and loving towards our environment if we could return to these simpler ways of interacting with it. If we slowed down from our busy, self-centered lives to actually process and appreciate the world we live in. Also, this discussion reminded me of the one we had in class a few days ago, about how eating other organisms is a way we interact with the environment intimately. I also wonder if the huge increase of fake, man-made, chemical substances in our food is another reason why humans are not as connected to the environment now. In a way, we are losing 2 of our 5 sense of interacting with the environment: touch and taste. Aside from destroying highway systems to implement public transportation, a way to experience the environment more on an individual way would simply be walking through nature and ingesting healthy, whole foods.