The Law of the First Bulb, or Why One is More than Eight

In the dining room here at Sunnyside hangs a hefty chandelier. And this morning I counted again, just to make sure: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Space for eight bulbs. Whoa! Eight? Could eight really be necessary? Or eight times more useful than one?

It's not that we're against light. We're not. We appreciate light. The place is called Sunnyside after all. It's just that...well how much light does any modest-sized dining room really need? What we're talking about here is about a hundred and fifty square feet. So what's with the gazillion lumens? Better unscrew a few. Better keep the bulb census low. Save on energy. Cultivate common sense. Nurture a sense of proportion. 

So how many bulbs should it be? Seven? Six? Five? Four? Three? Two?

The answer, we find, is one. One bulb for eating by. One bulb for playing Parcheesi by. One bulb for sitting across the table and chatting by. One bulb for writing in a journal by. One bulb for seeing where the table is on your way to get a cup of water in the kitchen (so you don't stub your toe). One. Just one.

Now it's true that occasionally there are times when a little more light is called for, so say my wife needs to illuminate a sewing project spread out on the table, or say I'm practicing recorder in the dining room, and I need to see the music on the stand just a little better, well, then we might reach up and screw a second (reserve) bulb in just a little further. Voila! The necessary extra angel of light has arrived and shall proceed to bless our activities. 

I can't think of a situation where three bulbs would really be necessary here in the dining room. Much less eight. Maybe an emergency appendectomy, conducted on the table top? Maybe the king of Togo dropping in for dinner? Seems unlikely though, and in the case of the king's arrival, seems to me that in terms of ambiance a few candles would be more to the point. Anyway is there even a king of Togo?

All of which brings me to a phenomenon I've been considering for some time, and that I want to articulate here: a phenomenon that I think is a pretty universal law. I'm going to call it the Law of the First Bulb.

The Law of the First Bulb states that for any given prized commodity--electric light, maple syrup, wind on a hot summer day--the shift from having none of it to having just some of it, is the sweetest change you'll ever feel on account of possessing it. Try this: eat one chocolate, then eat a second (of the same kind). Notice that the second one's good, but the first one was way better. It always is. That's because that first chocolate was the one that transferred you from a state of chocolate loneliness to a state of chocolate intercourse. Whereas the second piece just extended the enjoyment.

Some would call this the law of diminishing returns. But I find that way of putting it unnecessarily dour. After all, why concentrate on the lack of luminous oomph in extras? Why not instead lift up the wonder of the initial gift? For instance when it comes to light on demand--what a gift it is, that first and foremost bulb! Just ask a kid with a monster under his bed. Or the reader at sunset. Or the hiker, who finds herself, as darkness descends, still short of her destination. It's all there, right there in that first bulb. Enough light to get you through. To keep your spirits up. To get done what needs to get done. To enjoy that favorite activity just a little longer. To arrive in safety.

Extend the compass of the law. In what other venues may just one of a thing be exactly, beautifully, even miraculously enough? One telephone? One car? One house? One garage? One million dollars? (Really is a second million necessary!)?

“A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse!” says Richard the Third in William Shakespeare's play. He's having a bad battle day, and needs to get away, and for that of course he needs a horse. Now, just one horse will bring him from a state of horselessness to a state of horse sufficiency. Does he need two? No, not at all. All he can profitably ride is one, and besides, two horses wouldn't fit in the iambic line. “Two horses, two horses! My kingdom for two horses! On second thought, make it eight!”

Some of this, of course, is offered tongue-in-cheek. But! Consider that at one time a great deal of thought was given to the philosophy of numbers, and that a lot of thinkers in that strain--the Pythagoreans for instance--were pretty big fans of the number one. One represents unity. Wholeness. Completion. Self-sufficiency. No surprise then that ONE of any gift might prove to be all that and then some!

HB