Sneaker Warriors on the Move...

A Sneaker advertisement in the latest issue of Vanity Fair magazine  (June 2007) captured my imagination.  Coverse brand of sneakers to be exact.  A Sneaker Ad about Healthy Cultures and Creativity. 

Healthy Cultures...the definition  according to Converse:

"Healthy Cultures Nurture Creativity.  They help breathe life into the people who live within them.  Offer an array of perspectives to agree with, to fight against, to expand on or challenge."

"A Healthy Culture Welcomes Dissent.  Listens for the sound of new voices.  Supports original imaginations."

"Healthy Cultures are full of artists.  When hope dies, so does creativity.  When culture is lost, so is the Future."

"Indifference is the enemy.  Nothing is inevitable if you're willing to think.  Nothing is unattainable if you're willing to fight."

The ad which highlights the worldwide initiative to eliminate AIDS in Africa asks a question...How can we use our creativity within culture to be an agents of change?  This was a fitting entry for Converse to enter into Vanity Fair's June edition which focuses on Africa and is Guest edited by Bono (U2)

So, why is a sneaker company talking about Culture and expanding the definition way beyond the normally accepted boudaries of geographic location, socio economic statistics, politics and commonly acknowledged people groups.  Well, perhaps because the Internet has exploded the barriers that used to define culture into oblivion...forever!

Culture is rapidly morphing from a place where one participates within the more limiting contexts of physical or emotional space to include the abstract equivalent  in virtual reality and on-line communities.  Recognition of this reality links health and environment together in a manner that re-defines the rapidly expanding role of the artisit and creativity.  The artist...aka the writer & the contributor, are recast in roles that highlight the importance of dissent and the clarion call of the unique voice ;  a vivid re-imagination of the definition of health.  The meaning  of the old adage..."birds of a feather flock together," shifts  offering  new revalation into how the modern day flock emerges.

• "Healthy Cultures breathe life into the life into the people who live within them.  Healthy Cultures offer an array of perspectives.  Nothing is inevitable if you're willing to think!  Indifference is the enemy."  (Converse Ad - Vanity Fair 2007)

Sneakers are what we wear when we're exchanging the limiting contstraints of formal wear shoes to be more comfortable and more flexible.  Sneakers are what we wear when we really need to be able to be flexible, to move, walk...run and play.  Sneakers are shoes in which we engage with the world...not simply tippy toe through it.  Sneakers are what we wear when we need to move with the freedom of our entire body!  Next to our bare feet, sneakers are the closest thing to healthy footware that most of us possess.

So, is your Physical, Relational and Virtual culture healthy?  Are you a Sneaker Warrior?