The word 'was' must be the most lovely word in the English language. it tells you everything you need to know about our ingenuity and compassion as a species. if you look up smallpox today, often the first two words of the
definition will
read 'smallpox was'. 'was' we collectively gave it a fucking roundhouse kick and yelled: 'stay down cunt!' and it stayed down. if everything goes well and we mature as a species, the word 'was'
will propagate steadily throughout our encyclopedias. And perhaps centuries from today, some future
child will stumble on some future incarnation of Wikipedia and come upon obscure and forgotten upon diseases and afflictions of the human being, couched again and again, relentlessly, in the wonderful past tense:
"Cancer was a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or
spread to other parts of the body. these contrasted with being tumors which-..."
"Malaria was a mosquito-borne infectious disease affecting humans and other animals, caused by single-celled microorganisms belonging to-..."
"Alzheimers'
s disease was a
chronic neurodegenerative disease that usually started slowly and gradually worsened-..."
"Measles was a highly contagious infectious disease caused by the-..."
"Huntington's disease was an inherited disorder that resulted in the deaths of-..."
"Tuberculosis was an infectious disease usually caused by mycobacterium tuberculosis bacteria-..."
...
"Misery was an involuntary
state of
mental distress
common to humans of all eras and circumstances. Its eradication marked the beginning of the banishment of existential horrors from the human condition."
-exurb1a
