As Bill Hicks once said, "we're a virus with shoes". He was not far off.

Back somewhere in the 80s or early 90s, a favorite singer of mine Diamanda Galas got a tattoo that says "We Are All HIV Positive" -- her own brother had gotten that Dx in the earliest days of HIV, and passed away as so many of the earliest sufferers did -- but I really took her sentiment to heart, as it applies to all things. All diseases. All differences. There's nothing any of us suffer with that are not part of the human condition, much of which we could wake up one day finding ourselves unexpectedly afflicted with.. and yet we are so quick to demonize that which doesn't directly affect us through suffering we experience ourselves or that we might only see in those closest to us.

I guess I either think that none of us are ill, or that all of us are ill. I don't put myself above or below anybody. We're all just variations on a theme, genetically and otherwise.