sky to heaven - the invisible life.

I live in a fairly hot country, and during the summer it can get to 36C or more. I walk outside and after a few seconds I immediately start to sweat. Walking alone under the hot sun, I’d complain out loud, “It’s so damn hot!” Every air-conditioned building was like an oasis in the desert - sometimes I’d even step into a convenience store just to stand inside to cool off. I’ve lived here for six summers now, and I used to think I couldn’t live without air conditioners. I used to think, “I need the air-conditioner. I’d die without it.” Quite literally.

Air conditioners use a lot of energy. In the country I live in now, they estimate that this summer they might not have enough energy resources to power the island – because of air conditioners. So this summer, I had a crazy idea. I decided to see if I could survive the summer without using the air conditioner. Why not? If I really couldn’t take it, I could just turn the air-conditioner back on.

When I get home every day, instead of turning on the air-conditioner, I open the windows and then I take a 3-minute cold shower. If I get hot again later, I take a quick 1-minute shower - a “cool-down”. The cooling effects of that 1 minute shower can last an hour or the rest of the night, depending on how hot it is. And before I go to sleep, I usually take another 1-minute cool-down. On really hot nights, it’s difficult to fall asleep; in the beginning I tried the fan, but that didn’t work – the fan was too loud, and I couldn’t fall asleep with wind brushing across my face. So I gave up on the fan, and started to use a wet hand towel instead. I dampened the towel with water, and just put it on my body.

A couple days into my experiment, my aunt asked me, “Hey, why aren’t you using your air-conditioner?”
“I don’t want to.”
“You’re crazy. You have an air conditioner. Why not just use it?”
“To save energy. And I also want to see if I really need it – if I’ll really die without it.”
“Well, one person isn’t going to make that much of a difference.”
“You’re right, maybe not. But at least I have to know that I tried to do my part. What other people do is up to them.”

So far I’m over half-way through the summer. I still haven’t turned on the air conditioner or fan (I thought I might as well go all the way while I was at it). It feels good not to need and use the air conditioner. It also feels healthier, although I can’t prove that. My body seems to have gotten more used to the heat, since it doesn’t bother me as much anymore. I don’t take as many showers, and I can go to sleep without the wet towel. Actually, I feel cold now in air-conditioned places.

The air conditioner in my home has been off the whole summer, and I haven’t died yet. I’m still alive. And to tell you the truth, I’m kind of surprised that I’m still alive. I thought I needed it for so many years, and I thought I couldn’t live without it… but I can. And that’s a strange feeling: I was wrong about my own needs. I thought I needed it, but I actually don’t. And perhaps this is true for many of my other needs as well. Maybe many of my needs aren’t really needs at all, and I can live without them, too. Maybe they are needs simply because they are habits.

We often think we need the things that we already have. We think we couldn’t live without them – things like our house, our car, our TV, our favorite toys. Or our air conditioners. But I believe that many of these needs are just habits. We’ve had them for so long and we’re so used to them, we can’t imagine a life without them. Can you?

But everybody who doesn’t have an air conditioner, can imagine life without it because they have already lived without it for so long. And there are probably over 3 billion people in the world who live without air conditioners because they can’t afford to buy one. And I believe we can live without them, too. Life isn’t going to end because we don’t have our air conditioners – or our houses, cars, or whatever. It will just be different from the way it is now. The air conditioners, cars, and houses that we have today, didn’t even exist a hundred years ago. Human beings have lived for more than ten thousand years without them. Which means, you can, too.

But most people aren’t going to give up their air conditioners – or much of anything else they think they need. Why deprive yourself if you don’t have to? We believe that deprivation is a bad thing. We believe that having nothing is worse than having something – and the ideal situation for many people would be to have everything. But which person is more free – the one who needs everything or the one who needs nothing? If you need something, you depend on it and you aren’t happy without it. You become, well, needy. And I have never known a needy, happy person. So the more needs we have, the less happier we’ll be. Our needs don’t make us free – they enslave us. In the end, depriving yourself of an air conditioner might be freeing yourself from it. And who decides whether you really need that car or that air conditioner? You do.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m still glad that air conditioners were invented; after all, if my workplace didn’t have an air conditioner, it would be extremely uncomfortable at times. So I’m not suggesting (well, kind of!) that you give up your air conditioner. That’s your choice. Just consider that life is possible without it. That you are possible without it. You won’t die without your air conditioner. You will survive and live without it – and perhaps, you might live better. Or at least, live freer. For the more needs you have, the less free you become.