All Dressed Up and Nowhere to Go

It came to that, yes. I'd changed up and packed my things, ready to head off.

But I felt exhausted, and finally yielded to my disruptive jackhammer coughs, mouth-immobilising ulcers and leaky-nosedness. My classmates will be very disappointed that I'm not joining them yet again, but in my current state I'd rather stay overnight at home, where going through tissue boxes doesn't inconvenience anyone.

If nothing else, illnesses are frustrating because they make me blog in self-pity, when I'd much rather write on the issues of the day. I really don't think anyone's interested in entries that go on about one's ailments, but I can't help it much when the foremost sensations I experience throughout the day are precisely those ailments.

In any case, here's a rumination on health, and how it's treated in modern urban societies.

Health is like a mobile phone. We (Singaporeans, at least--not sure if it's the same in other countries) always expect the mobile phones of our friends and colleagues to be on 24/7. When we ring and get a recorded message saying that the phone is off, we get all jittery: is he / she avoiding me, we ask ourselves. The truth, usually, is less sinister: the phone battery may have gone flat; the owner may be watching a movie, bathing or having sex...things that often happen in the course of daily life.

Now why do we expect people to be on call all the time? I suppose it has to do with how technology has sped up the pace of life. Emails and mobile phones were devised to make hitherto difficult tasks easier, and they've done the job so admirably that we've gone about making tasks even more difficult to capitalise on our technological advantage.

Similarly, the fast pace of modern life--coupled with the irresistable profit motive of private businesses--makes us plan our work (or makes others plan work for us) with no provisions for people falling sick, even though that too happens in the course of life. I've seen too many tight deadlines and important events scheduled with the assumption that the key players would be in fine health till they were done. I've also heard of people refusing to take sick leave because of the inability of their colleagues to cover for them.

In short, the working world isn't very kind towards poor health.

I'm not advocating that every job we have to do should have a buffer period in the event of an illness. That simply wouldn't be practical. My observation here is simply of a much larger problem (if you could call it one): a particular work ethic; a certain way of life that has been shaped by social and technological forces.