Sit on the Floor. Why not sit on the floor? That is the…
By: Patrick Jessop
Tags: Culture, Philosophy, Thoughts, Capitalism, Sociology

Why not sit on the floor? That is the question you must ask yourself. You walk on top of the floor everyday, in your house, your living room, your kitchen. It is right there, and yet you walk all over it, dragging your dirt in from the outside and smearing it all over the surface. The floor is a place to sit too. Sit on the floor in the comfort of your own room, with nobody watching. This feels pretty natural, doesn’t it? Shouldn’t raise too much alarm to anyone. Now, try going outside and sitting on the floor. There is no floor there, sit on the grass in your lawn, backyard, or front yard. Not as strange. As one may sit at the edge of their property, they may feel more uncomfortable as they realize that their neighbor may see them, lounging a little too close to the sidewalk for their comfort. But it doesn’t really matter that much. Your neighbor has other things to do, and any perceived embarrassment you may feel in front of said neighbor will probably vanish. Sit on the sidewalk. Now, this may be a little more strange, but why? Your tax dollars surely pay for it in some way, isn’t it technically yours? The strict confines of suburban life have dictated that it is too strange for you to sit on the sidewalk. Sure, you may briefly sit on the curb to tie your shoe, that is all that is acceptable. But why can’t you sit, your rear completely in the middle of the sidewalk? It isn’t a crime, it just looks weird. As you may learn, there is no real crime to this, just the sin of appearing weird. Maybe you are supposed to appear normal like your neighbors, with their nice cars and their new house. So, you sit on the sidewalk with nothing to do. Boring isn’t it? If you look at the sky on a clear day, you will see a few things. You might see planes, you will hopefully see the sun, you might see some birds, and maybe some clouds. Try focusing your vision on one section of the sky (if you can even divide it into sections), and do not shift your gaze. If it is a busy day, maybe a plane will pass into the field of your vision, maybe a cloud will drift by and you may see something of interest in that cloud. There is nothing wrong with just looking at one spot. You don’t need to keep shifting your gaze and looking at your surroundings. There is nowhere else to go, you are on the sidewalk. How does the sidewalk feel? It probably feels coarse and uncomfortable, unless your town has adequate funds and gusto to constantly update its sidewalks. But what is wrong with the sidewalk being coarse? Nothing really, it just happens to be that way, you happen to have the belief that it shouldn’t be that way. But, in fact, it is coarse like you didn’t want it to be. Instead, you must embrace the sidewalk. It will not suddenly become smooth and conform to your tastes, and it will not do that right in front of you. Instead, you must embrace that the sidewalk is rather rough, painful at times. Yet, if you look closer you will find that the small indentations between the concrete form an interesting pattern. It is strangely interesting, and if you unfocus your vision it will appear as a series of dots. There you have your entertainment. There is no sin in being bored and being outside, on the sidewalk. Now, for your final position, move yourself to the street. Lower yourself from the curb and put your rear on the edge of the street. Are you slightly bothered by the suggestion? Why? You do live here after all.

There is really no reason as to why you feel uncomfortable sitting in the street. Again, your money pays for it (assuming you pay your taxes of course). See, the problem is that you are judging yourself for sitting in the street. Many of the strange gazes that you feel on your back from your neighbors are probably self-imposed. It’s just that you feel weird about sitting in the street. But think of it this way: you will only have to do this once, just to say you did it. After all, it will be something great for you to talk about next time you see your friends, at dinner, you could tell them how interesting you are for sitting in the street. Or maybe you will just walk back into your house and try to forget about the strange thing you just did, chalking it up to some sudden strange urge. What is the point of all of this anyway?

Living in the suburbs has caused you to put constraints on yourself. When you think of life in the suburbs, you probably picture something very specific right? Rows and rows of houses, maybe nice sedans or all-black SUVs. You probably picture endless streets in the form of grids or cul de sacs that terminate a small road, near some fancy real estate. These things you think are correct (depending on where you live), but they are not needed. You may not realize it, but you have fallen under the steely gaze of suburban aesthetics. The streets at night are but a haze in your mind, they all blend together the same. The lights on the porches of the houses are a nice yellow, and there will be no fluorescent lights to be found in any house for the next 12 miles of straight suburb. Imagine that! The comfort of nice yellow light can easily be seen from everywhere over town, you could even see its glow from an airplane window.

Just like the grids on the suburban streets, you may walk down, you try to categorize yourself and filter the things you say and think and do. What is the point? If you are on a walk down the street passing by the train tracks, why can’t you just sit on the little grass divider? Or if your street has a nice grass island in the middle, why can’t you just sit there or at least occupy that space for a little while? The police can’t arrest you for sitting or standing on the grass, as long as you don't threaten to hurt anyone or threaten the flow of traffic.

Why not sit on the sidewalk?