Editorial - Chaos and patterns: whither the health promotion trajectory?

Abstract

The unpredictable and the predetermined unfold together to make everything the way it is ... It?s the best possible time to be alive, when almost everything you thought you knew is wrong.' Some years ago, I had the pleasure of attending a performance of Tom Stoppard?s play Arcadia. In the final scene of Act 1, the young mathematician Valentine excitedly expounds the essence of complexity theory to the questioning historian, Hannah, in Stoppard?s brilliantly evocative language, as exemplified above. On hearing this on that night in the Sydney Opera House, I immediately felt that Valentine was saying something that I wanted to heed ? something that had meaning to me in relation to my work. I have often since mused over this text, endeavouring to clarify why I felt this way. I now once again return to Valentine?s words in confirming the way I feel health promotion should progress in this 21st Century.