Friday 2 February 2001

Pic of the day: Different planes of reality, or foggy notions?

Personal recession

I feel like I have a flu today, only without the fever. There is actually a flu going around here on the south coast of Norway these days, so it is not unreasonable. Well, except for the no fever thing. I woke up quite tired and stiff, especially in my thighs and legs. As if I had worked really hard and not stretched out after, the day before. But I had not worked particularly at all the last couple of days. A moderate headache has also crept in. My digestion has been upset for the last couple days. Yes, it would seem something is preying on me, but I can't say what. My temperature is actually slightly lower than normal.

Curiously, I also got a couple of small cuts on the back of my fingers during the last few days. I have not noticed when I got them, only a bit later. It would seem that my subconscious is getting careless about my body. Hmm. Wish I knew what it was up to now. Perhaps I can get a clue from some dream if I sleep a bit more.

The day was clear, sunny, and icy cold. The sun showed lots of light but little heat, and the wind cut into any exposed skin whenever I ventured outdoors. (A couple times during the workday, once for lunch and once to exchange backup tapes.) Like much of Norway, I have had to turn up the heat in my apartment too.

***

I thought about the upcoming recession today. I've said for years that there would be one in late 2000 or early 2001, when the frenzy of the Y2K upgrade was over. Now that it seems to be looming over America like a giant pitch black cloud, I'm not so sure I like it any more.

There must be recessions, to release the resources tied up in less productive projects. Not least the people tied up that way. To reset the values after a speculative bubble, like the wild property prices in Japan and the wild "dot.com" share prices in the USA last year. But I'd prefer a long, sliding bear market over a sudden crash and panic. We'll see this time ... I still don't know whether Greenspan is really frightened or is just trying to make people believe he is.

At least if the USA takes an economic downturn, this may calm down my native Norway too. And that would be nice. There is such a clamor for more money, you'd think the state was one big sow and we were all piglets.

I feel a bit strange about walking around thinking of these things. I don't know what goes on in the heads of people (though I guess this short comic strip may give a hint) but I feel pretty sure they don't walk around thinking of macroeconomy and infrastructure unless they are paid for it. Then again, to me these things are frighteningly real - almost like the floor under my feet, certainly like the clouds in the sky.

In the land of the blind, the one-eyed is a mutant freak.

***

Much of what I know about the world, I have learned from computer games. You may scoff, but games like Sim City or Civilization will teach people important concepts in a hands-on way that most of us don't get the chance to see in real life. The importance of infrastructure is one such thing.

When I was a young man, I wondered what this "infrastructure" was that they talked about on the news. I only knew infrared light, which was light with a longer wavelength than red. Later I learned about infrasound, which was sound with a very low frequency. (Infrasound is supposed to carry over enormous distances and may be used by humans as well as other species to find their way.) I supposed that infrastructure was some kind of large-scale structure, but what?

As I played various strategy games, I learned how important it was to build roads and railroads, schools and police stations, airports and docks, power and phone lines. I now think that if we could build this necessary infrastructure in poor countries, the poverty would disappear more or less by itself. But we can't. Their priorities are different. (Typically war of some kind, or so it seems to me.)

Sometimes this so-called real world seems to me like a fog, and the people in it like shadows ... just shadows in the fog. But then I have my own private little recession, and remember my mortality and my humanity again. I'm afraid I am there again. But I don't need to like it, do I?