The Chair

Known for his resourcefulness, when early man got tired of standing around, he came up with the idea for the chair.

"Well, first I had to figure sitting out," said an early man. "Once I got that down, the chair just sort of invented itself."

Indeed, the chair is so natural a place to sit that beyond actually having been made for sitting, it was really made for sitting.

I spoke to early man on the phone, "I bet you're sitting down right now," he told me. I confessed that I was. "I was there at the beginning and before the sitting we did a lot of leaning. Problem there is you're still sort of standing. No one had any idea yet about shoes or floor mats, so it still put a lot of pressure on the shins and all through the lower back. In a gatherer culture that might be ok, but if I cramp up while running down some animal, the soup's looking pretty thin.

"After leaning, all we really had was lying down, which leaves you prone to predators and lowers productivity in general. Sometimes, I can be totally wired, I settle into some grass to relax and I'm just out."

Early man has employed sitting disparately, ranging from resting after a long and historically ambiguous migration, to simply relaxing with friends while enjoying a cool handful of creek water. Since then, man has progressed greatly with his use of sitting and today people can be seen sitting almost everywhere.

An early sociologist man said, "It was a real leap forward in romantic intimacy when girls and boys saw that the lap of someone in a chair conforms to the outline of a chair almost perfectly. With the engineering aspect gone, it was really just a matter of acquiescence as to whether this could be an amenable place to sit."

People are so comfortable sitting now, that many have their own personal styles. There are loungers, learners, and leaners, just to name a few.

"We've had this debate many times," two friends reported.

"I like to sit with my legs crossed at the ankle," one friend said.

The other friend responded, "I'm a big believer in leg crossing, but I go for the knee. It's so comfortable, more streamlined, and looks sort of smart."

"I just think it's not as comfortable," said the first friend.

While these two friends have picked out a signature style, many others chose a blended approach. A man who was sitting said, "I go legs-at-the-knee until I can feel the pulse, then I start to switch it up."

Though sitting has been around for thousands of years, it doesn't look like it will be going away anytime soon. Chair orders this fall are steady, modern man will generally only be found standing on public transports when no seats or amenable laps remain, and many devote entire blogs to the poetics of sitting down. "Have a Seat," "The Art of Relaxation," and "Why Don't You Take a Load Off" are popular destinations.

One doctor reported, though, that sitting has its drawbacks. "Many of my patients come in here," he said, "and they tell me they don't get any exercise. It shows. Adipose tissue. Malaise. Poor body health. They really love to sit."

A patient sitting in a chair in the waiting room at the doctor's office said, "I've tried really hard not to sit, but it's in my blood."

I told him that an early man had invented sitting.

"There you go. Like right now I'm sitting and in a few minutes I know I'm going to stand up, go in the office, they're going to do some medical measurements, and then they're going to tell me to sit down and as much as I know what it can do, I'll just cave."