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NOTE 7. The Key to a Happy Life

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CHAPTER VII. THE KEY TO A HAPPY LIFE. April 17, 2003.

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Ah, spring! The time when the landscape appears as if it were painted by a great artist, when

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the birds make music of symphonic quality, and when the very air we breathe feels air-conditioned.

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That last point is particularly important because it is only true so long as we are

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outside. If we are inside, it is a different matter altogether. Most of the year, indoor

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air is fabulously fresh, clean and circulating at the right temperature thanks to the greatest

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source for clean, wonderful air. Not the Clean Air Act, but central air conditioning and

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heating. When people say, hey, turn on the air, it is literally true. We hardly open

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in Windows Anymore, which, not being Mr. Outdoors, I think is fine in principle.

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But in the spring, the air goes off.

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It is no longer cold enough for heat, but not yet warm enough for air conditioning.

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The thermostat tells the machine to stay put.

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You could turn on just the blowers, but who thinks of doing that?

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So the air just sort of sits there, dormant and still.

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It is the right temperature, but it is not moving.

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You might not notice this at first, but once you focus on it, you suddenly realize, I'm

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suffocating.

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This is precisely the revelation that hit me two nights ago.

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For two weeks, nights had been oddly miserable.

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It wasn't too hot or too cold, just oddly and unidentifiably uncomfortable.

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I would wake somehow unrested.

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Am I sick? Am I getting old? Finally it hit me. The only circulation in this room comes

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from human breath. This room needs a fan running. On it came, and with it, life itself. The

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night was suddenly glorious, clean and happy. All dreams were dreamy. I awoke and there

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There was once again music in the air, the feel of flowers, the sound of birds, metaphorically,

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of course. The fan has brought the spring indoors.

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Then I began to notice something. This problem isn't limited to the bedroom. It afflicts

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virtually all indoor space. In the spring, with neither heater nor air conditioner, indoor

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Your air begins to sink into a stultifying blechiness. If you are sitting in the same

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spot, you are breathing the same air again and again. My office needs a fan, too. I turn

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it on to the same effect. The flowers appear, the birds sing, the air moved. Suddenly my

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day has become as glorious as my night, filled with rapturous, spring-like freshness. The

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The Fan, God bless it.

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At this point, in a superficially trivial essay such as this, one is supposed to plunge

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into history and reveal all the details that one knows about the history of the fan so

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that the reader won't walk away thinking, I can't believe this guy thinks that his

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personal fan experience is worthy of an article.

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Or I could plunge into the economics of the fan, how it is the system of free enterprise

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is it gives us such choices, ceiling fans, stand-up fans, desk fans, clip-on fans, handheld fans and more.

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Hence, the system of delivery must be guarded against all encroachment by the state.

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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.

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In any case, the economic point is obvious enough that fans are available everywhere.

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For the history, it turns out that this isn't necessary. The history of the fan is already

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well documented at the website of the Fan Museum in London, www.fan-museum.org slash

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history.htm. Of course, the history on this site, a bit pompous, deals with the inferior

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and primitive handheld fan. For the serious stuff that we use in real life, you have to

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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.

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This site has an amazing array of pictures of its fans. You can also participate in the Fan Forum.

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You can attend an event which the site says is a great way to meet new friends, share

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fan stories and buy, sell and trade fans.

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Maybe so.

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What I do know is that the fan is the key to a happy sleep.

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It is the key to a happy productive day.

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And because nights and days make up the whole of life, the fan is the key to a happy life.

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For a mere $9 to $20, you can bring the spring indoors without the bugs or pollen or other

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natural menaces.

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Buy a fan and live a full life.