These insoles are meant to preserve the insides of wearer’s shoes. They also bear messages:

Right: “to have surplus”
Left: “Riches & Honor” / “wealth and rank”

The idea that a physical step propels you not just along a linear journey, or through time, but that the traveler has agency over their broader fate. Also, that you must swap out insoles on a regular basis both for sanitary and luck/health/wealth reasons. If you are in the midst of a particularly lucky streak, would you delay swapping out a pair of well-worn fortune-bringing insoles such as these for fear it could end it? Conversely, would you discard a recently purchased pair were they not sufficiently satisfying your demands for bringing good fortune?

The relationship between being able to dictate both your micro and macro progress along a “path” through interventions (the insertion of footbeds into one’s shoes, in this case).

The customizability of insole messages – consider for a moment what goal you would “walk towards”.

The culturally-subjective concept of foot-related taboos , and the attraction to the culturally (nearly-) universal desires of wealth, honor, and power overrides aversions towards touching something certain cultures condemn as “dirty”.