Metrics

The cognitive load is high in this country. New ways of talking and new ways of thinking are complicated by new measures of just about everything. To know how warm it is, we multiply by two and add thirty; to know how much something costs, divide by the exchange rate; to know how heavy, multiply by 2.2; to arrive at 1700 be there at 5; to drive 12 kilometers down the road, pay 5.5 reis for a liter of gasoline. It's heady work, all this calculating, and it gets exhausting but I think we are both getting a little better at accepting the numbers for what they are and skipping the math.