Take a seat: Robert Ashton overthinks a paradox

‘Was I subconsciously choosing to sit alone?’

I have an innate ability to overthink. Last Sunday’s Meeting for Worship was a classic example. Like many Meeting houses, ours has benches round the outside of the room, with a few chairs in a circle in the centre. I invariably sit on one of the benches, partly from habit and partly because from there I can see trees through the window. They give me a connection with nature, a helpful reminder of my place in the world.

This week, though, I didn’t think about the trees, because I realised that everyone else had chosen to sit in one of the chairs, and I was alone sitting on a bench, outside the circle. This began to bother me. There were eight chairs, and I was one of seven Friends present. There are other Friends who, like me, usually sit on a bench, but this time I was on my own. I had this growing sense of self-imposed isolation, even though common sense told me that nobody else in the room was giving the seating arrangement a second thought.

But once I start overthinking, my mind begins to search uncontrollably for reasons beyond chance occurrence. I had gone into the room for worship; I wasn’t intending to have to justify to myself why I hadn’t joined other Friends in the circle. What settled in my mind was the thought that, as a writer, I choose to sit away from the action so that I can observe what is going on. Was I subconsciously choosing to sit alone so that I could observe my Friends at their worship? I hoped not, because to do so meant I was treating Meeting for Worship in the same inquisitive way as I would a conference or business meeting.

This thought took me to the paradox that is at the root of my Quakerism. You see, I’m not a natural ‘joiner’. I prefer my own company to that of others. My wife is similarly introverted, and even less likely to join an organisation than I am. She has attended just two Quaker Meetings, both in the USA, because the alternative was to spend a Sunday morning in a strange city on her own. Those two visits gave her an insight into how I choose to spend my Sunday mornings, but they were not experiences she felt any compulsion to repeat.

Of course it is human nature to sit in the same place each time we go to Meeting. It’s why I always choose the same seat on a bus, or use the same locker each time I visit the gym, or visit the same barber every five weeks to have my haircut. Researching my latest book revealed that, in the nineteenth century, the wealthy families in a community had their own private pews in church, and the squire would even have his own door so that he and his entourage could avoid mixing with other villagers.

But as I reflect on that Sunday, I realise that, while I spent much of the hour overthinking the seating arrangement that day, I have never overthought my motivation for becoming a Quaker. It’s just never seemed necessary.

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