Chairs

I found a book about chairs in the library. On the front page is a poem by Henry Thoreau that inspired me. He wrote, " I have three chairs in my home- one for solitude, two for friendship and three for society. Thoreau's prose then and still now, is thoughtful, deliberate and insightful. This quote from his book, Walden chapter six' the visitors' seems metaphoric, is literally referring to the room in his small hand built cabin in the woods when he invited guests. He considered the space in the way it would " allow for the thoughts and words to have a steady course in which to reach ones ear of the hearer". Long before modern psychologists came to study embodied cognition — the way the body in physical space affects the mind — Thoreau, whose house included a “withdrawing room,” describes the ideal physical space for silence-fortified conversation. There is something worrisome of our new public discourse — the absence of a considered pause in meaningful conversation - now consumed with the internets outrage culture of hurling reactive comments to an invisible audience. Hopeful for the day where quiet and bits of silent contemplation enter back in to our societal realm knowing that the finer things are not heard if we have to shout.