The trouble with my shoes, and co-incidents
28 May 2009Starting from a stereotype, even though I am loathe to do so, I have quite a few pairs of shoes for a man; about eight, not including my Homeys slippers.
However, I don’t wear all of them on a regular basis. My Dr Marten’s 10 eyelet black leather boots have, until the recent crisis, languished at the bottom of my wardrobe, along with a pair of steel toe capped black brogues and a light brown pointy toed number with an inexplicable fringe (that I have attempted to remove but which is surprisingly resilient). I also have a pointy black pair which are pleasingly smooth and unblemished, but my penchant is for brown, meaning they rarely experience an outing.
Therefore, when both my pointy brown pairs began to disintegrate at the same time – sole up, as one would expect – I became somewhat perturbed. Add to this the not-at-all gradual death of my only pair of trainers, and you can imagine my fear that a (meta)physical despair was about to descend upon me.
Not wishing to capitulate to depression via accoutrement failure, I looked for learning from my predicament. The initial conclusion I drew was that perhaps I should buy shoes at different times, but this struck me as a) too obvious, b) a bit boring, and c) unhelpful now that I am irreversibly in the position of having to replace three pairs of shoes.
Therefore the lesson I choose to learn is this: there is no such thing as a coincidence, there are merely incidents that happen at the same time. Perhaps we need to write the term ‘co-incidence’ or, as I have clearly chosen to do, ‘co-incidents’.
Alternatively, I could decide to conclude that something ‘out there’, some sort of force, is working against me, or at least my feet, or perhaps my shoes, or even my sense of style. I could surmise that someone has been whittling away the soles of my footwear in secret. But that would be silly, wouldn’t it?
Rather, what has happened is that I have worn my shoes, my shoes have been worn, and all in the same period of time. There’s nothing strange about it, it’s simply a tad annoying.
| posted in language & random | 8 comments
The force that is operating on your shoes is merely pressure. “Pressure is an effect which occurs when a force is applied on a surface” as Wikipedia helpfully points out. Step lightly and maybe your shoes will wear out less quickly. Or maybe just stop wearing shoes and work your groove right into the ground…
damn that physics
I must say I enjoy the concept of ‘accoutrement failure’.
I would also advise that you go out and buy three new pairs of shoes immediately and stop worrying about thinning soles
Actually, also, thinking about the concept of co-incidents: I like the idea of thinking of said events in such a way. However, I think the point of referring to one or more events as a single entity (coincidence) is important as that is the thing that unites said events into one coherent whole – they combine to create a new single entity. Hence you could then have exeperience several coincidences in one day, as opposed to a number of co-incidents, which may or may not correlate with each other.
I am now off to write a philosophical digression on the fact I can’t spell.
But that’s what I’m trying to avoid; the mistaken deduction that a number of incidents constitute an objective single thing, ie a coincidence. We must be aware of what we put into the world.
I agree with you about awareness, but that’s not the point I’m trying to make. I’m just trying to make a point about the word coincidence and what it means. By it’s very nature, a coincidence is a combination of a number of related events. Co-incidents are really just those individual events. Whether or not you take individual events to mean that there has been some coincidence is relative.
The tone of the piece does imply that you don’t really agree with coincidence as a concept. Which I agree with. I mean, stuff just happens, innit. The fact that all three sets of shoes wear out at the same time merely indicates your lack of foresight
Damn and blast my inferior skillz – ‘its’ not it’s’.
Sheesh.
Anyway, if you are going to invest in some new shoes, may I suggest some long brightly coloured ones with large rounded ends?