Semi-strangers often write me notes that seem to go out of the way to wish me good health. That may just be a curtesy I never got socialized enough to appreciate, but sometimes I wonder what they know, or whether they're reacting to something I've said in passing and mostly forgot. "How are you?" is another one -- on a bad day most likely to elicit a biting response than the usual good natured slough off. Actually, I've been remarkably healthy all my life, especially for one who has put so little effort into it. But I'm 55 now, and I've collected some symptoms of my family's customary grim reaper. So when I experienced chest pains Monday afternoon, I let my worries get the best of me, and went to see my cardiologist -- who didn't have time to see me, but checked me into a hospital for tests. A little over 48 hours later I'm back home -- my initial complaints have now faded into a hazy background of new damage caused by the tests and the rigors of patient life in modern hospitals. The good news is no evidence of cardic blockages that could have caused the chest pain. I'm told the pain could have been caused by thousands of other sources, but in ruling out my heart they've ruled out the one that could bring me to an end most immediately. So once again I'm lucky in health.

Meanwhile, I've gotten nothing done, except for finishing Richard Manning's far-reaching Against the Grain: How Agriculture Has Hijacked Civiliation, and starting Gareth Porter's Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam. Manning stalks his subject like the hunter-gatherer he aspires to be. Having no taste for hunting myself, I tend to start from the assumption that agriculture is a given -- how else can six billion people coexist? But he raises an insightful question when he asks why one would choose a life of agriculture over hunting and gathering. As he points out, the latter is fun, while agriculture is back-breaking hard work. This sort of basic insight is similar to the one he revealed in Grasslands when he described fallow farmland as a clearcut grassland. Agriculture leads not just to more work but to worse health. It does support more people, surpluses even, which in turn lead to hierarchical societies, accumulation of wealth, spread of poverty, war, and empire. But closer to home, he gets into the history of processed food, the industrial expanse of commodities (corn, wheat, rice, sugar), the politics of subsidies and the subsidization of politics. One of the most striking points he makes is that the only ideas that attract any development funding are ones that lead to selling more products. This makes for an additive model: more fertilizers, more pesticides, more of whatever accomplishes more growth. Makes me wonder something I've been wondering quite a while, which is whether growth is worthwhile. If you start to have doubts there, lots of things come into doubt -- including most of economics.

Meanwhile, I've lost three days of doing what I do -- no progress on any of my writings, no records rated, haven't even opened my mail. All because of a niggling concern with my own personal health.