We no longer think of chairs as technology; we just think of

Host:
The evening had fallen like a curtain over the city, its lights trembling in the mist like scattered thoughts that refused to rest. Inside a dim loft studio, half-filled with sketches, blueprints, and unfinished furniture, the air was thick with the smell of sawdust and coffee — that distinct blend of creation and weariness.

A single lamp hung above a wooden table, casting a cone of amber light. Jack sat there, sleeves rolled, his hands scarred from work, eyes fixed on a half-built chair before him. Across from him, Jeeny perched on a stool, sketchbook open, pencil tapping against the paper in restless rhythm.

The silence between them wasn’t empty — it was full, alive, waiting to be named.

Jeeny:
“Do you ever think,” she began softly, “that technology only stops feeling like technology once we’ve forgotten it was ever new?”

Jack:
He glanced at her, half amused, half tired. “You mean like this?” he said, gesturing toward the chair. “A chair isn’t technology, Jeeny. It’s just a thing that holds you up.”

Host:
The light flickered across his face, emphasizing the hard angles, the stubborn lines that refused to yield.

Jeeny:
“But that’s the point,” she replied. “There was a time when we didn’t even know how many legs a chair should have — when people were still figuring out what it meant to be comfortable, to rest, to be held by something they’d made. Isn’t that what Douglas Adams meant? That we stop seeing the miracle once we’ve gotten used to it?”

Jack:
He smiled — not kindly, but not cruelly either. “You like to find wonder in everything. But sometimes, Jeeny, a chair is just a chair. We can’t spend our lives being amazed by furniture.”

Host:
Her eyes flickered — a spark of irritation, a shadow of sorrow. The rain began outside, light at first, then heavier, as if the sky itself disagreed with his certainty.

Jeeny:
“You’re missing the idea, Jack. It’s not about furniture — it’s about forgetting. Every technology starts as a revolution, but when it becomes normal, we stop seeing it. Writing, electricity, the wheel, even the chair — all of them were once questions. Now they’re just answers we’ve stopped asking.”

Jack:
He leaned back, the chair creaking under his weight, a faint smirk touching his lips. “And that’s a bad thing?”

Jeeny:
“It’s a human thing,” she said. “But it’s also a tragedy. We stop seeing the invisible — the thought, the failure, the trial that built the world around us. We live inside miracles, and we call them ‘ordinary.’”

Host:
The lamp light wavered. A moth circled near it, driven by some ancient, irrational faith in the flame. Jack followed it with his eyes, then spoke.

Jack:
“So you want people to walk around in awe of everything? That’s not life, Jeeny — that’s madness. If we kept feeling that way, we’d never get anything done. We’d just sit and marvel at the wheel.”

Jeeny:
Her laugh was soft, but it carried a thread of defiance. “Maybe that’s better than forgetting we ever had to invent it.”

Host:
A long pause stretched between them — not empty, but vibrating with unspoken tension. Jack’s hands moved over the chair, tracing the grain of the wood, as though he might find the answer hidden in its texture.

Jack:
“You think forgetting is a sin,” he said finally. “But forgetting is how we move on. If we kept looking backward, we’d never build forward. We can’t keep revering every tool we’ve made.”

Jeeny:
She tilted her head. “And what happens when we start believing that we no longer make tools, but truths? When our technologies become so familiar we think they define what’s real?”

Host:
Her words hung in the air like dust in sunlight — glittering, unsettling, impossible to ignore.

Jack:
He hesitated. “You’re talking about faith, aren’t you?”

Jeeny:
“I’m talking about blindness,” she said. “Every age has its chair — something so commonplace we forget it was once an experiment. And when we stop remembering that, we stop being curious. That’s how empires fall — not through failure, but through familiarity.”

Host:
The rain softened, becoming a fine mist, tapping gently against the glass. The room seemed smaller now — the air thicker, as if the truth itself had weight.

Jack:
“So what are you saying? That we should treat every object like a philosophy lesson?”

Jeeny:
She smiled faintly. “Not every object — just the ones that hold us up. The chair, the screen, the language, the belief. Every one of them started as a crash — a failure that taught us balance.”

Host:
He blinked, slowly, considering the half-built chair before him. One of the legs was slightly uneven, just enough to wobble when he pressed on it. He steadied it, but the wobble returned — stubborn, insistent, alive.

Jack:
“Maybe you’re right,” he said. “Maybe we’ve just built better ways to forget that we used to fall.”

Jeeny:
“That’s all I’m saying,” she whispered. “Every stable thing was once a mistake. Every comfort was once a risk. But once we get it right, we stop feeling the fragility that made it possible.”

Host:
Her voice softened into the sound of the rain, and for a moment the room itself seemed to lean in, listening. Jack’s eyes drifted toward the window, where the reflection of the chair merged with the city lights, like a memory becoming indistinguishable from its present.

Jack:
“You know,” he said after a long pause, “the first time I built a chair, it collapsed. I laughed, then I cursed, then I built another. I must’ve broken five before I got one that held me. But I didn’t call it failure back then. I called it learning.”

Jeeny:
“And now?”

Jack:
He looked at his hands, rough with scars and splinters. “Now I call it work. Maybe that’s what I’ve lost — that sense of wonder that it could still fall apart.”

Jeeny:
Her eyes softened. “Then maybe you haven’t lost it, Jack. You’ve just buried it under too much certainty.”

Host:
The lamp above them flickered again — a brief tremor of light, like a small reminder from the past. Jack smiled faintly, the first real smile of the night.

Jack:
“You know, if we built chairs like we build our beliefs, they’d probably all still be crashing.”

Jeeny:
“Maybe that’s not a bad thing,” she said. “A crash teaches us where we’ve forgotten to balance.”

Host:
Her words settled over him like dust, quiet but undeniable. He reached out and ran a hand over the chair, steadying it, not to finish it — but to remember that once, he had not known how to make it stand.

Host:
The rain stopped. The silence that followed was soft, almost holy. The city outside glowed in muted gold, as though the world had paused — not to be marveled at, but to be noticed again.

Jeeny closed her sketchbook. Jack picked up his tools. They worked — slowly, deliberately — their movements echoing the rhythm of something older than invention: the quiet patience of remembering what it means to make something from nothing.

And as they worked, Douglas Adams’ thought seemed to hover between them, alive and luminous:

“We no longer think of chairs as technology; we just think of them as chairs. But there was a time when we hadn’t worked out how many legs chairs should have, how tall they should be, and they would often ‘crash’ when we tried to use them.”

Because in that room, with its half-built chair, its unfinished faith, and its two souls learning again how to balance, the truth was simple —

Every chair, every idea, every human —
once had to fall
before it could stand.