26/03/2025
Metrics, measurements and all things standardised….
Part of the joy of my weekly veg box is reading Guy Singh-Watson’s news about farming that goes with it. In a world of false news, misdirection etc, I trust him as a source.
Today’s news entitled Betrayal at the finishing line speaks about the government changing the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) which farmers have been working on/towards for 10 years. I can understand when he says that farming relies on long-term decisions, and he goes on to discuss government schemes and suggestions for farmers’ pay structures. The problem is, as he says:” How do you value an oak tree relative to an earthworm, an endangered bird, a kilogram of sequestered CO2 or a clean river? Our complex, diverse ecosystems defy the over-simplification of a single monetary metric”.
This struck home with me as I saw this happen during the fifteen or so years that I worked in the NHS of which I am a huge fan. GP payments increasingly relied on metrics and measurements to ensure that their patients conformed to standardisation of all sorts of things like blood pressure, cholesterol, hormone levels, you name it. The problem is not with measuring per se, it is that trying to squidge individuals into one measurement by use of a pharmaceutical drug often popped them out of range on another measurement. In this game of pharmaceutical whack-a-mole, the individuality of the patient (you, me or one of our loved ones) was gradually eroded. We are included in Guy’s consideration of nature: our complex, diverse systems defy over-simplification into monetary metrics.
I see this in my work in natural health. I ask people how they are and they start telling me all about their high this or low that. I enquire whether they like salt only to be told that they don’t take it as they know it is not good for them. I want to know whether they desire it, which is like speaking a foreign language, and then people sometimes say well yes but… as though they are confessing to committing a murder. Some people send me reams of test results, sleep logs, diaries etc etc. This is just data, not information – there is a vast, vast difference.
I do empower my clients to look at a few test results as I think they should know what the GP is talking about and so that we can see progress, but being wedded to metrics is a different kettle of fish altogether.
5-a-day, 30 plants a week, 10,000 steps a day, 8 hours sleep a night, go to work on an egg. These are all made up, mostly by marketing people! Nothing to do with health. My son once offered to buy me a fitbit watch for my birthday – thanks but no thanks. Knowing how much REM sleep I had? Not interested. If I get up in the morning and I am still tired, then I might take it a bit easier that day or go for a longer walk or go to bed earlier. I will probably consider whether I am over-thinking something at the moment so that I can take some action or put it down and relax into a clear mind again.
In focussing on systems and measurements, I think that modern medicine misses out on the vitality of the person – actually how are you? Do you feel joy, sorrow, creativity? Are you relaxed and at ease with yourself? If yes, then you can deal with whatever comes your way. This is not about being happy all the time, it is about being able to feel the full range of human experience and live at a level that sits above function.
Crikey, I never thought I would say this in a blog but it is living life at a more spiritual level - a level where love, kindness and peace are available to all and there are no measurements or metrics in sight.
Jack Pransky’s famous quote says “All we are is peace, love and wisdom and the power to create the illusion that we’re not”. It is worth a moment to think: what is feeding your illusion today?
