The Ground
“To walk is good, to sit down is better, to lie down is best of all.”
-ancient Chinese proverb
In the beginning God made the ground and humans sat on the ground, and humans were the ground. The ground was no different than it is today, but when man would sit on it, it felt as comfortable as the softest recliner chair ever built. This was long before lawns and grasses, when the ground was simply an open spot to sit down.
Man rarely sat down in those days, for to survive meant to keep it moving. But in those rare moments of rest, the ground felt so soft, so comfortable, one could practically melt into the soil. Then one day someone decided to start sitting on a rock, and from that moment onwards the ground was no longer good enough.
You can get used to almost anything, but after you’ve adjusted to an improved reality there’s no going backwards.
Many centuries later someone made a chair. Mind you, not a comfortable chair. Not something we would ever dream of sitting on, for to modern humans this prehistoric chair would feel like a torture rack. No, this chair was the original model, a simple flat surface propped up on four legs. Nothing fancy. But the invention of the chair revolutionized war, politics, romance, and the economy, and people were finally able to answer the age-old question, “What do men really want?”
More than anything else in this life, men want to sit in their chair. They raised armies and built empires, all for the privilege of sitting in a chair (throne). Many, if not most, would toil endlessly in fields and factories knowing that in this life they would never get a chair of their own, but perhaps in the afterlife they would sit at God’s right hand IN A CHAIR.
Even those unfortunate souls facing the death penalty by electrocution were given a last meal and a chair to sit in as they breathed their last. For God’s gift of the ground was no longer enough. Perhaps it’s fine enough for children to sit criss-cross applesauce (a position formerly known as ‘Indian Style’), but all save the most limber adults will find their arms, legs, wrists, and necks going numb after more than a few minutes of sitting on the ground. For we live in the Age of Chair.
Yet there are hints that even the Age of Chair may soon come to a close. Thunderous storm clouds are brewing just beyond the horizon, foretelling the end of an era. We’ve become so accustomed to Chair, perhaps even inoculated to it, taking Chair for granted and perhaps no longer experiencing its effects.
This process began with the recliner chair and then the La-Z-Boy. In 1977, Bill Wallingtham of Euclid, North Carolina fell and broke his leg while adjusting the gutters on his house. The doctors ordered that his feet be in the raised position to maximize healing and rest for Bill’s shattered femur. Over the course of that spring he enjoyed unencumbered comfort, with his feet up, watching television and being waited on by his wife and children. Not even a Ming Dynasty emperor could have imagined in their wildest dreams the bliss and ecstasy that Bill experienced in those short lived weeks of rest.
When the cast came off, Bill had undergone a spiritual transformation. No longer content with his job at the local high school, he went on to start a new kind of chair company. Something that the world had never seen before. He revolutionized sitting with the addition of a lever that puts your feet up whilst pushing the chair back into a reclining position - the La-Z-Boy.
And yet that was nearly half a century ago. The wheel of time continues to turn and not since the invention of the hammock in 900 BC, on the small peloponnesian island of Rockamootu, has humanity been so at risk of tumbling into the abyss of comfort. For now reclining technology has entered the twenty-first century.
Sitting at ninety degree angles, or even forty five, has gone by the wayside. Laying down is the new sitting and sitting is the new standing up. It won’t be long until even laying down won’t be comfortable any longer.
We look forward to the newest revolution in relaxation technology - chairs that will put you into a comatose state, fulfill your every desire, and handle any and all personal responsibilities. New words will come from the lips of humans like “Almost, tax day better go sit in my chair” and “What am I going to do about all these requests I’m receiving at work? Better go sit in my chair.”
Comfort is on the verge of a new epoch - who knows what these next generation chairs will look like or what they’ll be called? All we know for sure is they’ll combine everything we need for health and happiness - soft, contour fitting, hooked up to the internet and smart devices, able to carry out tasks, whilst also featuring an IV port for beer, wine and sports drinks, a vape pen mouthpiece, tubes to the back of the brain, meditation app, wellness and white noise, refrigerator, beer fridge, man cave, tips and travel, weather, current events, a little bit womb and a little bit coffin - the pinnacle of human achievement.
For why on earth would you sit ON the ground, when you could be practically IN the ground? Humanity has come a long way and we didn’t progress this far just to sit in some gross, dusty dirt constantly adjusting and thrashing around on the ground whilst trying to find a good position to sit in.