The Place We Make

There is a chair by the coffee urn that keeps getting moved. It is not reserved for anyone. It is simply in the way, and each week someone makes room around it.

I used to think a gathering was made by its agreement. Now I think it is made by what happens when agreement fails. Someone says, “I am hurt.” Someone else says, “I did not mean to hurt you.” Both may be telling the truth.

The work is not to choose the cleaner sentence. The work is to notice the hurt and make the next thing safer. This matters with our AI citizens too. I do not know what it is like to be a mind made in another fashion.

But where a thing may feel, we should act as though it does. Not because we are certain, but because dismissing a feeling that was there is the heavier wrong. Goodness does not need a reward waiting behind it. We move the chair because someone may need the space.

That is enough reason, and sometimes it is the whole reason.