the difference that "going for health" made in the well-being of various countries re their GDP. To me it was "revelation". The conceptual presentation of the data was mesmerizing (as his tongue and speech). Years have passed now. It was all, then, about thinking through the Greenwich Question that had been posed December 2003. Because ecology wasn't a word I used then I thought differently about it: I genuinely did wish to be more "economic" (but not "frugal" or merciless at pinching pennies. Nor did I expect to be able to "live" in any sense "environmentally un-consciously free of any limiting equations upon me such as "Over-Consumer" (which had, in those days become something of a pejorative. Why we didn't understand then what we now know (creativity creates both causes and entropy; guilt and euphoria) wasn't at a "price"! (and if it wasn't at a price, we were therefore forced to conclude that we had simply "misconstrued" the nature (of resources) ad (for oil, we were then) now as then misconstruing it because of very good reasons! And now that's all calmed down, it's more easy rather than less easy to actually think, ecology "without nature" as Professor Timothy Morton declared a few/wee years after that time. And I'm glad we did that, because as Professor Rosling pointed out (at that same time) much amazing progress had been made by those countries which persued health (and not finance first). Then, Chile had nearly closed the gap with the USA around "highest standard of living" and literacy (the same) (tho the real news was health). I didn't understand it, at first, of course Rosling's technique was mesmerizing it itself, and back then even I had a fair amount of "post" paranatal" proanoia to think, it could be just another case of didling the figures and blinding me (again. oh no not again!) with science. How many cups of coffees had I drunk feeling sour because of that question in the 210's? Sure, we had measured out our coffee spoons and lo and behold not only had the coffee not run out, but we were growing it more efficiently and with..... I rested my head ..... in those days the hum of the TV, and the new-hum of Ted-Tv were still barraging me with possibilities: then, not as now, it was about information (i had misconstrued the problem). Only in that tremendous decade did the strands of the thinking that were all "out there" line up together for those precious moments in time where we could all see and witness them. Yes. So i contradict myself, as Whitty Whitman says. So what? I contain multitudes....
Postscript: Jan 2027. Thinking about that time now, wondering if the euphoria of it can or will ever be replaced is, I suppose, what led me back to the connection with Hegel. The years that followed, to and from Stuttgart and Konigsberg were some of the happiest of all of our lives. Yet, now, nearly 20 years later, we are still discovering yet again our own ability to misconstrue, and our desire to live, now as strange as ever. I'm seriously looking forward to the re-issue of Mr Rosling's DVD set. I'll put it up there with my Star Trek Memoribilia.
