I had to buy some shoes today for something specific and it reminded me of just how particular you (I; one) can be about the things that you own. A lot of the time I think that most of us couldn’t really describe why we do or don’t like something. We might be able to construct some words to that effect, but I don’t know that they’d mean much.
I generally believe in the Pirsigian idea of quality. That you sense it before you can ever describe it. That there’s continuous quality that you experience moment to moment (and that you feel when you just know that something isn’t to your taste), and static quality that you interpret when you do actually try to rationalize and describe it.
I saw so many pairs of shoes that just didn’t have quality. I could rationalize a few of the things that made me feel that way, but I’d probably also just make a face, or a noise, or a gesture. I couldn’t tell you everything that made them not-quite-right, but they… weren’t quite right. This post is about shoes, and has nothing to do with shoes.