Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection

by John Green

We love a narrative of the great individual whose life is shot through with major events and who turns out to be either a villain or a hero, but the world is inherently more complex than the narratives we impose upon it, just as the reality of experience is inherently more complex than the language we use to describe that reality.

But of course people are not just their economic productivity. We do not exist primarily to be plugged into cost-benefit analyses. We are here to love and be loved, to understand and be understood.

Consider yourself for a moment—everything you’ve overcome, everything you’ve survived. Think of the people who loved you up into your now. Think of how hard school is or was, how you were lucky or blessed to meet people you could love and who could love you. Think about how rare and precious humans are, and how many of them you get to worry for and care about.