Measures of happines
On this so sweetly beautiful day, another one where Earth sings out triumphantly, “look at me, look at me”, and when I’ve just come back in from watering my garden (with my recycled sewage) to this computer screen, my thoughts have turned to the question, “Why do I feel still, easy and . . . dare I say it, ‘happy’?”
Part of the reason I’ve asked it is that on my way back to the house a friend, Nathan, has shown me these 2001 figures from a book he’s reading:
Global causes of violent death
Worldwide 1,851,000
Suicide 786,000
Homicide 563,000
War 502,000
Comparative Health Systems – global perspectives, Johnson & Stoskopf
Surprising to see suicide takes more lives than homicide and war.
I know that in India about three years ago over 25,000 farmers suicided that year; they face debts which can’t be paid off except over four or more generations of farming, and many other problems. India is the country where last week I read of a billionaire living there who has just completed the world’s first billion dollar home. It has three helicopter landing pads and requires its own air traffic controller. I wonder if he has any tenant farmers in his line of business.
I wonder if those studying these figures ask about the impact of gardening on suicide? That’s an interesting question, yes?
Enjoy this lovely day,
M
Interesting statistic. There are similar issues in mainland China: grossly disproportionate wealth for the few, desperate hardship for the many. A Chinese tycoon in Hong Kong (where I lived for 8 years until the pollution drove me away this year) has bought not one, but two, Airbus A380s: one for himself and one for his entourage.
From my own highly localised experience, there is a lot to be said for growing a plant to make you feel hopeful about the future. Destroying them, not so much.