I am confident in everything that I do.

Giving blood, the fear is mostly at the door. It is in the car park, in the corridor, in the nine minutes of the questionnaire. By the time the needle actually goes in, most people find they have very little left to be frightened with.

Confidence gets pictured as the absence of that corridor. In practice it is closer to the willingness to keep walking down it with damp hands.

The people who look unshakeable are not reporting a different set of sensations. They have simply stopped treating the sensations as a reason to turn around.