The truth behind the shoes
*some plot spoilers ahead*
This film isn't the kind that throws in small details for fun; there's usually some kind of meaning to it-- like how the dream sequence of Dan's leg shattering wasn't just a bad dream but a foreshadowing of the traffic accident.
To this end, I never quite got why Socrates was wearing two slightly different shoes and why they put so much emphasis on it throughout the film. Then it hit me: Soc himself had once injured his right leg too. Of the two shoes, the right one is darker, newer, and the left shoe is a shade lighter, scruffier. Dan must’ve had a lot of shoes like that at the end of his recovery himself, because his right leg would always be in a cast and so the right shoe would never be worn for a few good months.
If the film is trying to hint that Soc himself was also one who’d gone through a very big personal hurdle such as an injury to achieve (for the lack of a better word) enlightenment, then the mentor-student roles of Soc and Dan suddenly seem to gain a whole new depth.
And if this is truly the case then their exchange at the bar (“how do you know I’m not just your consciousness talking to you?”) suddenly seems rather chilling because in a sense the two of them are mirror images, just a few decades apart.