CHAPTER VII. THE KEY TO A HAPPY LIFE. April 17, 2003.
Ah, spring! The time when the landscape appears as if it were painted by a great artist, when
the birds make music of symphonic quality, and when the very air we breathe feels air-conditioned.
That last point is particularly important because it is only true so long as we are
outside. If we are inside, it is a different matter altogether. Most of the year, indoor
air is fabulously fresh, clean and circulating at the right temperature thanks to the greatest
source for clean, wonderful air. Not the Clean Air Act, but central air conditioning and
heating. When people say, hey, turn on the air, it is literally true. We hardly open
in Windows Anymore, which, not being Mr. Outdoors, I think is fine in principle.
But in the spring, the air goes off.
It is no longer cold enough for heat, but not yet warm enough for air conditioning.
The thermostat tells the machine to stay put.
You could turn on just the blowers, but who thinks of doing that?
So the air just sort of sits there, dormant and still.
It is the right temperature, but it is not moving.
You might not notice this at first, but once you focus on it, you suddenly realize, I'm
suffocating.
This is precisely the revelation that hit me two nights ago.
For two weeks, nights had been oddly miserable.
It wasn't too hot or too cold, just oddly and unidentifiably uncomfortable.
I would wake somehow unrested.
Am I sick? Am I getting old? Finally it hit me. The only circulation in this room comes
from human breath. This room needs a fan running. On it came, and with it, life itself. The
night was suddenly glorious, clean and happy. All dreams were dreamy. I awoke and there
There was once again music in the air, the feel of flowers, the sound of birds, metaphorically,
of course. The fan has brought the spring indoors.
Then I began to notice something. This problem isn't limited to the bedroom. It afflicts
virtually all indoor space. In the spring, with neither heater nor air conditioner, indoor
Your air begins to sink into a stultifying blechiness. If you are sitting in the same
spot, you are breathing the same air again and again. My office needs a fan, too. I turn
it on to the same effect. The flowers appear, the birds sing, the air moved. Suddenly my
day has become as glorious as my night, filled with rapturous, spring-like freshness. The
The Fan, God bless it.
At this point, in a superficially trivial essay such as this, one is supposed to plunge
into history and reveal all the details that one knows about the history of the fan so
that the reader won't walk away thinking, I can't believe this guy thinks that his
personal fan experience is worthy of an article.
Or I could plunge into the economics of the fan, how it is the system of free enterprise
is it gives us such choices, ceiling fans, stand-up fans, desk fans, clip-on fans, handheld fans and more.
Hence, the system of delivery must be guarded against all encroachment by the state.
But thanks to the fan running in my office, I feel no burden to defer to any model of writing that is so tediously conventional.
In any case, the economic point is obvious enough that fans are available everywhere.
For the history, it turns out that this isn't necessary. The history of the fan is already
well documented at the website of the Fan Museum in London, www.fan-museum.org slash
history.htm. Of course, the history on this site, a bit pompous, deals with the inferior
and primitive handheld fan. For the serious stuff that we use in real life, you have to
You can also go to the site of the Fan Collectors Association, www.fancollectors.org, in Andover, Kansas, which is appropriately hip to the magnificence of the electric fan.
This site has an amazing array of pictures of its fans. You can also participate in the Fan Forum.
You can attend an event which the site says is a great way to meet new friends, share
fan stories and buy, sell and trade fans.
Maybe so.
What I do know is that the fan is the key to a happy sleep.
It is the key to a happy productive day.
And because nights and days make up the whole of life, the fan is the key to a happy life.
For a mere $9 to $20, you can bring the spring indoors without the bugs or pollen or other
natural menaces.
Buy a fan and live a full life.