This Was Not a Spiritual Experience

“Who’s my sore throat septic guy?” quipped the doctor, as I sat dishevelled in the ENT ward. I was listening to “I’m Waiting for the Man” (Matrix Tapes Version) by the Velvet Underground because I love a bit of nihilistic romance.

I had a shit week last week — hospital, IV antibiotics, and that moment where a doctor looks at you like you’re a walking meatbag of statistics.

And so I’ve been thinking about how unappreciated competence really is.

Hospitals aren’t calming places to me. In fact, I’m a little scared of them, not in a brave way. Once the fever set in, the whole place turned into an obstacle course. I got lost on the way to the ward. By the time I arrived, it felt like a drunken quest I’d accidentally triggered via my GP. The nurse side-eyed me when I told her about my weekend.

The hospital had identified my type and was dealing with me accordingly.

It’s all so functional in a way that you can’t not respect it.

What struck me most wasn’t the drama of me being ill — that part is kind of dull — but how little ceremony there was around fixing it. A nurse appears, checks something, disappears. You watch a little bottle empty into your arm at the rate it’s meant to.

The most theatrical moment was the ENT guy peering into my throat in his special hat — I’m a big fan of special hats — a sort of techy headband with tiny binoculars and a torch. “Say ahhhh,” he said. “Love your hat,” I garbled, which is my favourite compliment to give. He told me it’s called an ENT loupe¹, which felt disappointingly normal.

Anyway, he checked my bloods, gave me a brief telling-off, and explained that apparently you can’t go to the gym, work, and party all year without consequence.

There’s something reassuring about that kind of competence. No one is performing care for an audience. Everything is designed to work whether or not you’re in the mood to notice it.

Funnily enough, the day before I got ill I was telling someone (probably sermonising) that I’m not a “list ten things you’re grateful for” kind of person. When things go wrong I tend to reflect briefly, then crack on. I’m usually looking ahead, chasing the next hit of dopamine. Call it karma.

“Count your blessings.”

I usually hate that kind of analogical thinking about gratitude. Maybe I’m softening. But we talk a lot about failure — personal, institutional, cultural — and for good reason. I touch on those themes on this blog often enough.

What’s easier to forget is how much of daily life depends on things we never see failing. Institutional criticisms aside, much of life in the privileged world runs on things that are so reliable they almost disappear from thought entirely.

I don’t think this is gratitude, exactly. Although I am grateful, it’s closer to relief. A little background appreciation for the fact that, despite all the noise and nonsense in my life, my world is still mostly staffed by adults who know what they’re doing.

I was feverish, sick, a bit scared — and still, I was carried along by people (and machines) who didn’t require any belief, optimism, or participation from me.

They just worked.

And that’s enough positivity for one week.