Who needs EXPERTS?

Six years ago I was emerg­ing slowly from the fog and anx­i­ety of the dark­est of drug trips. A cock­tail of mor­phine and other mind-bog­gling med­ica­tions had my brain doing loop the loop, cart­wheels and the splits, all at the same time.

But it took the pain away and bought my body time to edge back to life.

Peo­ple were kneel­ing in a line in the cor­ri­dor out­side my in­ten­sive care cu­bi­cle. The white walls tilted and pulsed like kneaded dough. Ab­stract shapes, some­times grotesque, faded in and out. An un­seen child kept squeal­ing and slam­ming doors. It was shock­ing, a hell of a ride, and it lasted for days. I lost it at one point, ap­par­ently, dis­en­gag­ing from all the pipes and mon­i­tors and adding to my chal­lenges by crash­ing to the floor and in­jur­ing my head, legs and arms.

With­out the ex­pert wis­dom, pa­tience and ded­i­ca­tion of ex­tra­or­di­nary peo­ple I would not be here. Yes you, Conxi, and all the team who fed a tube from my arm into my heart, who talked to me con­stantly, hon­estly, pos­i­tively, who propped me up when I fi­nally tried to find my feet again and take steps. As all with hearts, I worry deeply about what you and all the self­less health pro­fes­sions have been fac­ing through the past 15 months, and miss that I can­not come to the hos­pi­tal as I have oc­ca­sion­ally done and give you an­other hug.

Learn­ing to walk again, each cen­time­tre back to con­scious­ness, takes the ques­tion­ing mind onto an even more in­tense, hon­est jour­ney. Every minute is a bless­ing and de­mands promises to self, a re-com­mit­ment to truth: To be as kind as I can be, and that means being hon­est.

Since then I have not seen peo­ple kneel­ing (they were chairs, by the way) or heard voices, but my mind wres­tles con­stantly with a deep­en­ing anx­i­ety. The frail fab­ric of ex­is­tence and the human con­di­tion – think­ing we know when we don’t, and our dire propen­sity to di­vorce our­selves from core re­spon­si­bil­i­ties and the ma­trix of all life – brings me back to that cu­bi­cle and the ex­pert ex­am­ples of those who cared for me.

The on­go­ing global dose of mor­tal­ity de­fines some­thing fun­da­men­tal. It brings us back to Earth.

Enough, then, of cheap talk, in­cite­ment, sound-bites and the puffed-up, un­qual­i­fied al­ter­na­tive facts spouted by power-crazed ego­tists.

En­trust, heed and ac­knowl­edge those who ded­i­cate them­selves to the com­plex study and ap­pli­ca­tion of ac­quired in­tel­li­gence to sus­tain­ing life; our pan­demic-trau­ma­tised species, yes, but also all life, not least our home, this del­i­cate planet.

But that is noth­ing, NOTH­ING, if we per­sist in en­trust­ing power to peo­ple who fail to do like­wise.

Rea­son is a bless­ing. We all have it, weaved with con­science, from birth. Sud­denly it is not so dif­fi­cult to fig­ure. As we try and come to terms with the Covid shock the an­swer to the world’s con­sid­er­able plight is in plain sight. It is hard earned and its value had been drop­ping fast... until now.

Knowl­edge.