Always adv.

1. every time; on every occasion; without exception: We always sleep late on Saturday. 2. all the time; continuously; uninterruptedly: The light is always burning. 3. forever: Will you always love me? 4. in any event; if necessary: If it rains I can always stay home.

Websters Dictionary of American English – Random House, New York 1997.

Always

there is a space beyond words where experience first arises and whereto I always wish to return – Jerzy Kosinski

In Webster Dictionary, always is an entry word coming just before a lexical entry for Alzheimer’s.

Always is a comprehensive word, like the universe. It was, it is and it will be. In The Book of Genesis, the universe reminds of an open space which, paradoxically, arises at the very moment in which it is comprehended. The understanding of a notion and the actual existence are one and same. Therefore, the beginning of intellectual life and the death of mind stand between these two headwords.

And among all those explanations of connotations that pertain to word always and that can be found inside Webster Dictionary, this is my favourite: without exception. Which again, paradoxically, is a connotation that is precisely in accord with a notion of disease.

Namely, if Alzheimer’s can affect anyone, everywhere, no defence against it, and if a person stricken by the disease becomes unaware, incapable of comprehending, than her brain is under attack, and brain can only be individual.

An intellectual is always single and one, and thus disease/ pestilence with its contagious comprehensiveness is logically in accord with the permanence of always, and not with the transience of Alzheimer’s. Therefore, in between disease and always, comprehending and pestilence, there is a beginning and the end of everything. Without exception!

Nino Sorić