Humans are bi-pedal animals who walk extensively over long distances. However our feet are soft and not well suited to the task. However dogs, monkeys, and other animals have paws that serve as shoes to protect the feet.
No other mammal has such unprotected - but we are known for walking the farthest distances / nomadic behavior. Is this a joke?
I mean honestly this is the answer. I used to long board barefoot as a teenager and I also ran track. Often ran barefoot. By the time I was 16 I could walk on some glass without bleeding.
Yeah shoes were optional for a solid chunk of change of my lifetime and I used to have some real rough feet and damn do I miss them =P! How do you do nowadays? I am still pretty minimalist. I like the heel of my shoes to be as thin as I can take them. But hiking, when I use those minimalist shoes I keep torturing myself my poking a fat rock right into a nerve that sends pain rushing up my being =P! I don't think I'll ever have it like I used to.
It's just you. You're weak, and soft, because you've been trained by society to wear shoes.
There are many people who never wear shoes, and they have tough soles. From indigenous tribes, to modern Olympic athletes.
That said, even your dog can step in sharps and hurt their feet; cuts, thorns, stabs - shoes provide protection that paws and tough soles do not; this is the main reason we wear footwear.
If you're interested in a more back-to-nature approach without giving up extra protection, there are dozens of companies that sell minimalist footwear - in essence, modern moccasins. Vibram is one such, but there are many more. Fitkicks is a cheap version (~$20). Look for "active" and "water shoes."
Gotta use Duck Duck Go + Tor + VPN on a burner phone you can yeet into the middle of international waters when you're done. Make sure to sink the boat while you're there, too. That way, under international law, nobody owns it.
You have to walk... barefoot. My feet are messed up and I have some impressive callouses on the balls of my feet. They are a little better after surgery, but recovery sucked. Ultimately, your feet build up protection. Caking on mud probably helped. Animal skins, rudimentary sandals from various plants, and other natural resources could provide extra protection. Unfortunately, we have built an environment made for shoes and evolution is doing the rest. Walking on pavement is not great without shoes. Especially when it bakes. Walking on soil and grass feels a lot better.
Because we are primates, and none of our forest-dwelling ancestors had paws.
Humans developed footwear before we started walking long distances. We didn't evolve for it, we built tools that let us do things we couldn't do before.
I'd argue it's not always comfortable for them. Consider how hot black pavement can get on a summer day. I never make my dog walk across a parking lot when it's been baking under a 100 degree sun. I carry him to a shaded area, at least.