It must have been him who first made me interested in wanking, and this interest has never faded. I think that you wank when you feel good and also when you feel terrible. It’s something invariable in life, a form of channeling energy.
The physiotherapist was a fan of “positive wanks,” which, according to him, are wanks that make you think of another person and bring him or her luck. If you dedicate your wank to someone, your luck passes to them.
This way of focusing your wanks has always seemed to me poetic. So many positive wanks in my life! You feel powerful, as if you have a gift.
So go ahead, don’t be afraid. Just make yourself think about only one person. And let magic do the rest.
16
The difficult thing isn’t accepting how you are, but how everyone else is
Some people vomit and some people don’t vomit.
—great sentence delivered by a nurse (that day I was vomiting)
Well, this discovery is in fact two discoveries, two in one.
1. Accept who you are. It’s not easy, I know. Saint Augustine said: “Know yourself, accept yourself, better yourself.” I think he was extremely optimistic to think you could do all three things. I’ve always been happy with knowing myself. It’s not easy to know yourself, to know what your desires are, what things you like, what things you don’t enjoy.
But it is possible. Give it time, search, search again, keep searching, and eventually you’ll have a picture-perfect portrait of who you are.
2. Once you know yourself, if you manage to develop some affection for yourself, the hard bit comes next. The second part of the discovery: Know everyone else and accept them for who they are.
I know this might seem a little bit like a religious commandment, but in fact I simply mean that you should have the same patience with other people as you have been able to have with yourself. Accept what they are, accept what they are not: It’s the first step toward accepting what you are like, what you are not like.
And this is where the rest of the chapter heading comes from. The most difficult thing isn’t accepting what you’re like, but what all the other people are like. This is the aim. Sometimes, when we know a few people, we might think we have reached our goal. But the goal’s a long way away, still very distant. Every day we will meet more and more people and we will have to dedicate all our efforts to understanding them.
This discovery, which seems so complicated, came from a nurse. There was a guy who managed not to vomit when he had chemotherapy, and from that day on he got annoyed when there were other people around him who were vomiting. He didn’t try to understand and get to know other people; he’d attained his objective and as far as he was concerned the rest of humanity was just trailing in his wake. The nurse told him that some people vomit and others don’t vomit. And that’s where it all started.
She managed to get the guy who didn’t vomit to tell us some of his tricks; one of them was to drink Coca-Cola, which he claimed was a great antivomitory measure.
It was amazing to see him give advice. Sometimes it’s not so important to follow a path as to leave the path we’ve been following, choose another one, and realize that there’s more than one way to get where we’re going. Don’t judge; try not to be absolute. Every path can be good; it just has to be clearly the product of a particular decision.
17
The power of contrasts
We’re not going to die of cancer; we’re going to die of boredom!
—one of our favorite chants
On the fourth floor of the hospital where I was always sent as an inpatient, we dreamed of things we didn’t have.
A long time after that I’ve given talks in hospitals, and lots of patients have said the same thing: There isn’t enough stuff in the hospital, there’s no fun.
We used to say in the hospital that we weren’t going to die of cancer but rather of boredom. It’s because everyone thinks that when you’re in a hospital your life has to stand still, that you shouldn’t have any fun. And the truth is completely the opposite. Your normal life stands still and so you need many more activities to fight against all this not living.
I remember when people were saying that the late-night talk show The Martian Chronicles was trash. I think that all those critics must never have been in a hospital where they were showing it. Thousands of sick people laughed with that program, enjoyed it. It gave them strength; it gave them life. It made them participants in a world that had stepped away from them for a moment.
It’s always seemed to me that not much imagination goes into designing hospitals. When I started treatment, the chemotherapy rooms didn’t have any sort of entertainment at all. Later there was a little television set looking over the room, but you had to be eagle-eyed to see it.
But where were the chessboards, the board games, the cards, the fifty-inch plasma TVs, the consoles, the Wi-Fi connection? Yes, yes, no joke, there should be all these things in a hospital. Connecting people to the world is vital in helping them fight illness properly.
Sometimes people don’t realize how much life force patients have. I’ve always recommended that patients should give talks themselves. They’ve had experiences that would leave you astounded. In the hospital, I’m sure that if there was a talk given by someone from outside, then you’d go, so just imagine that it’s a proper talk, but it’s your roommate in his blue pajamas right next to you giving it.
When you’re sick your second life appears. A life that you can’t stop living, because however ill you are you’ve got to carry on being alive. I’ve had my life outside and my life inside. Now I’m living my life outside, but maybe my life inside will start again someday. Both lives have aspects in common but are very different in other ways. To carry on living is the important thing. Childhood, adolescence, adulthood: They all have to be lived through, even if you are ill.
But you need the track to be able to run, you need the stage to be able to act. Sometimes hospitals lack contrast, and the most important thing about life is putting contrasting things together. I’ve always thought that when you put two opposing things together, something magical happens. This is why lots of relationships are founded on the complete lack of common ground between the two members of the couple.
We should put more contrasting things together. These are a few that I hope will soon happen. The list’s not in any order; it’s a list that comes from years spent in a hospital and years spent outside one:
1. Olympic-sized swimming pools in hospitals. So many patients would get so much out of swimming! You can dive under the water and feel like a fish.
2. Bowling alleys in airports. It’s important to be able to let off steam. You’d feel great relaxing with a few lanes. Sports and airports, any sport would be good in an airport. (They are starting to build gyms in airports. They must be doing a whole lot of good.)
3. Hairdressers in cinemas. You could get a good haircut before going to see a movie. I’m going to get a haircut and catch a film. It would be great if there were someone who recommended a new style to you or a shave or just a massage and a bit of depilation. What film are you going to see? Well, I recommend you have this particular style.
4. Books in woods. Little libraries in the middle of forests. Books originally come from forests; we should leave some there. Make some cupboards and put them there. It would be great if you could climb a mountain and find the perfect book to read when you got to the top.
5. Bars in banks. Little bars while you wait to take money out or see if they’re going to give you a loan. Why do banks have to be so serious; why can’t there be a bar so that you can meet other clients, know what they’re interested in, what they hope to get out of their life or their investments? I’m sure loads of people would go in the morning and say happily: “I’m just off to the bank; I’ll be back in ten minutes.” Have a nice cup of coffee or a quick snack before deciding what to do with your savings. On one side you order a little plate of squid and on the other two hundred thousand
euros: See which one you get first.
18
Hibernate for twenty minutes
Don’t move. Breathe, don’t breathe.
—phrase most likely to be heard in any X-ray room
There are phrases in the hospital that you hear until you’re fed up with them; they end up forming part of you. It’s as if they were suddenly in fashion. It’s like when there’s a phrase that gets famous on a TV program and then people don’t stop repeating it. In the hospital world it’s the same sort of thing; this is one of those phrases.
“Don’t move. Breathe, don’t breathe” is what you hear most often when they give you an X-ray or a CAT scan. They above all need you not to move; you have to stay very still so that everything shows up in the right place. This period of immobility lasts between fifteen minutes and an hour and fifteen minutes. You have to be very patient to get much out of these moments; you have to take them as moments of inner peace.
Of course, to enjoy having cancer you have to enjoy dead time, which is the basis for everything when you’ve got this illness. It’s the hardest thing: to not do anything, to stay still even though inside you really want to walk away, to fly, to play, to work.
This is what you have to control, and this is also what it’s most difficult to accept. You’re alone in the room, because no one else wants to irradiate themselves. What about me? Do I want to irradiate myself? I always asked myself that when the others left the room.
But it’s not just about being still, it’s also about keeping quiet.
And as if that weren’t enough, you have to control not only your silence but also your breathing. Lots of silence, lots of stillness, and lots of controlled breathing.
Without knowing it, every time they gave me an X-ray I came into contact with my inner self. It was like looking for something and finding it: self-examination, a strange yoga that made me feel better. I came out of the X-ray room improved.
And so, after I was cured, I carried on using this method. Every month I try to make an appointment to give myself an X-ray. I don’t actually have an X-ray machine at home, but they’re not necessary for you to examine yourself from the inside.
1. I lie down on my bed. I shut all the doors, turn off my cellphone, and stay still, very still.
2. I repeat in my mind the number one phrase from the hit parade: “Don’t move. Breathe, don’t breathe.”
3. I do this for twenty minutes. I forbid myself from doing anything that isn’t thinking about not moving or rationing the air that I breathe.
4. And, magically, when you finish this period of not doing anything, you can solve problems that had become rusted shut, find feelings that you had thought lost forever, and believe (of course, you have to check it later) that you have the solution for everything.
It might seem like meditation, but really it’s just being still. Everything in this world would be a great deal better if we just stayed still for a while, stayed very still. Twenty-minute hibernations.
19
Look for your hospital roommates outside of the hospital
You’re my brother, my little brother from the hospital!
—my hospital brother Big Antonio, a singer
I’ve been lucky enough to have great roommates. In another chapter I’ll speak about some of them. They’re like brothers you have for hours, or days or months. They really are like brothers, potential “yellows.”
I love the feeling of coming into a room dressed in your street clothes, finding someone unknown (wearing pajamas and with his closest family members around his bed), and knowing that in a few days you’ll be intimate friends.
Every time you get to a hospital they give you the bed closest to the window. It’s like an unwritten rule, but they know that you’ll need to go to the window and look at the world you’re leaving behind for a bit. Another unwritten rule is that the patient doesn’t have to get into pajamas on the first day. The new arrival has twenty-four hours to acclimatize.
It’s a struggle to take off your day clothes and go to bed at noon when you feel well. Normally, after putting on the hospital pajamas, it takes you almost another twenty-four hours to get into bed.
These first forty-eight hours are when your roommate starts helping you. Sometimes with words, sometimes only with gestures. Sometimes, simply and straightforwardly, by explaining what he’s got, what he felt when he arrived, and what he’s been feeling in the hospital. Experience is the basis of communication; to see yourself reflected in someone else means you’re halfway to winning the battle.
My best roommate was called Antonio and he was from Mataró. He had a huge hole in the sole of one foot, almost big enough to hide a Ping-Pong ball. But he was all energy, all nerves. He had more energy than almost everyone I’ve met since.
He was nineteen and I was fourteen. He made me laugh a lot. He let me spend almost four days without getting into pajamas and protected me from the doctors and the nurses; he said he liked seeing me dressed, that it made him feel as if he had a visitor.
He had a little piano that he used to play songs, and little by little, using music, he started to help me. He would play and I would sing. We wrote great songs. Our most successful one was “Give Me a Weekend Off” and our next-biggest hit was “Write Me a Ticket for the Sun.”
He was an amazing person who, without knowing it, was fading a little every day. Every day there were fewer doctors who came to visit him and more people who came from outside. This is the clearest sign that you’re dying: when friends start to visit you at all times and the doctors ration their visits because they haven’t got much to tell you.
He spoke to me about women and love. It was his favorite topic: how to find the perfect woman, how to find the love of your life. When he had only two days left he was still looking for it, still philosophizing about it. I think it was love that made him so special; the search was reflected on his face.
He died. I didn’t see him die. We never saw them die: They almost always went home to die. We knew that when they left they would die, but we said goodbye to them when they were still alive; that was always very good.
He left me his piano; he said that one day it would be worth millions. I still have it; I still play it. There’s no doubt he also left me some of his energy. I didn’t share it with him, I asked for it all; I asked for it and he gave it to me. It’s inside me still and I’m sure that it’s 90 percent of all the passion I have.
I had twenty roommates. Nineteen were great; one was horrible. (He snored, he didn’t talk much, and when he did he was dull; he just kept on repeating: “I am a human being.”) The other nineteen have influenced me. It’s a positive statistic.
I’m still looking for roommates. I think it’s what I look for most of all. You can find roommates in real life; you just need to know that you won’t find them in a hospital but somewhere else: in an elevator, at work, in a shop.
Because yellows (and we will talk about them in detail at the proper time) are the foundations of the world.
The important thing to do is to look for them, to look for these roommates.
1. Find a stranger. Someone who powerfully attracts your attention.
2. Talk to them. Simply talk. Say what comes into your mind. Find a way to approach him or her, gently, very gently.
3. Give them forty-eight hours. People always need forty-eight hours to lower their defenses, to trust you, to get into their pajamas, to accept someone.
4. Enjoy your roommate.
But this is just a start. If you find roommates outside the hospital, then you can find everyone else: the orderlies, the doctors, the nurses, the yellows.
I don’t mean to say that you need to find doctors outside the hospital and make friends with them; I mean that there are people who can have the same effect on you as the doctor has on your body and your illness.
1. For me, finding doctors means finding people who can cure you or listen to you. They’re necessary; they’re part of the yellow network, the netw
ork of friends. But you have to be able to divide them, set them to one side, so that you know that you can approach these yellow doctor friends when you are “unwell.”
2. Nurses are people who can go with you anywhere, give you moral support, or share with you all the thousands of problems you have. They’re the kind of people you end up thanking for something they’ve done thousands and thousands of times, because going somewhere boring with you on a sunny summer day when they could be on the beach is something that has no price.
3. Orderlies are individuals, lucky encounters, altruistic people who give you a hand at different moments of your life. It could be on the highway when your car breaks down, or it could be when they lend you money after a robbery. Lots of people call them charitable souls. I call them orderlies.
We will talk about the yellows at length in a bit. Patience, patience. Let’s just build the hospital for the moment, the environment.
20
Do you want to share an REM with me?
Nighttime gives you the strength to change the rhythm of your life. All you need to know is what you want to change and that the dawn will not come soon.
—Christian, somebody’s brother (I’ve forgotten whose)
Nights are the yellowest part of the day. I like nights because almost everything is made real.
Nights in the hospital were great. They were calm. For years the Eggheads escaped at night: We took our wheelchairs and went looking for adventure, running all over those six vast floors.