So maybe I don’t try to figure it out. Maybe I just aim to get the couch right: strong bones, high-quality leather, something earthy and animal and real. A surface that knows something of what it was to be alive, that warms to our touch and cools in our absence. Also: an expansive bench that fits all of us. Something that will hold us through everything that lies ahead — the loving, collapsing and nuzzling. The dying, the grieving.
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
Verbatim recurring item in The Guardian Q&A; two publisher-hosted respondent pages establish institutional recurrence.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 24 January 2026 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 44 →I’d like them to inherit my optimism.
Exactly what my parents left me: the knowledge of the difference between good and bad and right and wrong. Everything else is entirely up to them.
A sense of what’s right, a few quid and some nice paintings.
More from Bear Grylls
View profile →Caring too much about what others think.
We finally get to be with Jesus, face to face.
A soldier and adventure guy.
Light of the Almighty in my heart.
Small things make me anxious – like social things – but I have no big fears because I have faith in my heart.
The Bare Necessities.
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