Trilogies of value

After two days away at a conference I am glad to be home.

I had to speak about "how to demonstrate value for money" which is not quite as easy as it sounds. To begin with it is a mistake to conflate cheapness and value. This error is common in Britain, the more so in these days of consciously enforced austerity.

Elements of value form a type of trilogy: obvious items that can be measured; some that can be estimated more or less roughly; and a few that simply don't reduce to monetary terms. What is a visually attractive public building worth compared to one that is dull? However I would like to think that well designed things can work better and not necessarily cost very much more.

After dinner I enjoyed the pleasure of another trilogy: Miklos Banffy's Transylvanian Trilogy. I love these books which seem to exude the rare gift of speaking personally to me.

As a reviewer put it: the sublime descriptions of Balint Abady’s journeys through the bewitching landscapes of Transylvania and his “sense of wonder and enchantment” at its limitless plains and high mountains, dense forests and lush meadows, where nature serves as a balance and restorative to the harsh vicissitudes of the human world.

That's it. When I lived in Transylvania nature served as just such a counterpoint to the challenges and frustrations of daily life. When my link to the mountains and woods began to be severed then life in that province ceased to provide pleasure and meaning. Such is the price of back trouble that curtails riding.

Like Banffy's hero Balint Abady I tried to change things for the better but could not swim against a flow of life powerful and inexorable. Against that background it is easy to seek solace in memorable journeys across lovely landscapes.

Abady of course had the added attraction of whichever countess he happened to be having an affair with at that moment. But, be honest, how romantic is it to ride out across beautiful hills, ford a river and pass through quiet woods on a summer evening on the way to an assignation?

I used to dream of riding out to a homely traveller's inn where I could stable my horse and meet friends. Perhaps my imagination should have been more ambitious?

I've written about the things that can be measured precisely, roughly or not at all. On reflection it was the bad things about Transylvania that seemed easiest to enumerate and weigh. The good things - the nature, beauty and fun - were the hardest to measure. Most were unquantifiable, reducing at best to vague descriptions that slipped through the mind like water through fingers - refreshing but impossible to grasp. Weighing bad and good is like comparing apples and oranges. The bad exists undeniably. But the good is real too. the good cannot wipe out the bad. However nor can the bad deny that joy given by the good. It's a matter of which one chooses to focus upon.

Comments

[funder]

I read this a couple weeks ago and now I'm wondering if it applies to you:
http://freakonomicsradio.com/bring-on-the-pain.html
(You can listen or read a transcript.)

Your "last impression" of Transylvania, the last couple months there, were SO bad. If the researchers are right, you can't help but focus more on the bad stuff than the good. Maybe the bad memories are starting to fade and you can remember the good ones now?

[White Horse Pilgrim]

That's really interesting - if something gets worse towards the end then one's memory of the whole experience tends to be worse. (I do like the comparison with having a probe run up one's intestines. Well it wasn't quite like that!) Yes the situation out there did get worse and the final months were bad. Understanding that is a big help towards understanding why I certain negative feelings have been so powerful. Thank you for this insight.