Bonus segment:
A Piecemeal Exposition
THINKING ON MY FEET
Hello dear readers! Thanks for joining me on my adventure. I have no idea what the future holds for me, and even though our story’s only just begun and we’ve barely had time to get our feet wet, I can already tell your company’s going to make all the difference.
To express my thanks, I thought I’d take this opportunity to share some knowledge in the hopes it might help you on your own journey. And so, without further ado, I invite you to take a load off your feet with me and partake in this chapter’s tidbit:
You might have noticed that our first chapter begins with quite a bit of focus on a single body part of my body. That’s right, the Foot!
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But why - you might be asking yourself - why would so much emphasis be given to the lowly foot? To which I have the pleasure of answering: because the foot, though perhaps low in position, is at the peak of importance when interacting with our environment! And in a situation like mine, trying to find my feet in a strange, new environment, I’ll take all the help I can get to stand on my own two feet.
Indeed, the foot’s soles contain a higher density of sensitive nerve endings than most other parts of the body. Therefore, when you place your bare foot on the ground, it’s more than well-equipped to inform you of the ground’s texture, such as when I felt that it was firm with a loose top layer. This is also why it’s so easy to feel the ground’s temperature with just a light touch of your foot!
However, the thing that really sweeps me off my feet is the foot’s crucial role in the body’s proprioception. Together with the ankle, the foot’s muscles and soft tissues pack loads of tiny, specialized organs that help us perceive our body’s position and movement. This is particularly true when the eyes can’t be used, which is why your feet might seem more sensitive when you’re walking in the dark or with your eyes closed. And so it goes nearly without saying that foot health is strongly related to posture and coordination. All the more reason for us to strengthen our feet by walking around barefoot!
Before I leave I’d like to share one last thing: that the skin on the soles of our feet tends to be thicker than anywhere else on our body, ranging from 1 to 5 mm, whereas the eyelids are generally the thinnest at 0.05 mm! I thought this bit of information suited my circumstances quite well, seeing as I’ll most likely be needing thick skin to get through whatever’s waiting for me next.
Off the top of my head,
-me (your as-of-yet unnamed Heroine)