Working with the "parasite"

Today in class we Tony brought up this new phenomena of working with the parasite. This idea for some reason has never occurred to me. As obvious as this idea seems, I have yet to consider what it would be like to simply work with the parasite.

As I look at what parasites mean and the effects they cause on our lives, I have decided that parasites themselves are life. In life we constantly encounter interruptions and choose paths that may take us in a different direction that we want to go, and we may consider the events we continuously go through parasitic. From all the texts we have read through, especially Serres, I have decided that life would not be the same with out these “parasites.” Without these interruptions and unplanned encounters people would not be where they are today, and world would not have the complications that evolve in to greater success without these issues.

I believe that working with the parasite may be the best way to go about these problems. We know as humans that nothing will ever go perfect. You can plan and plan and plan and something will ultimately go wrong and interrupt our oh so perfect plans. The key to success is to I suppose allow these parasites to occur and work with them.

I think that in order for people to make it through life we have to become more flexible with these parasitic subjects that become apart of our lives. In a sense we are constantly living off things (our hosts), which really brings me back to this idea that humans are the ultimate parasite. We use everything around us to survive, and without them what would we be? For us to believe that parasites are such an interruption, and problem that interferes with our lives, we have to look at ourselves, and see where we lie in this universe in a perspective of the other. The world and everything that occupies it is fundamentally our host, and we continuously interrupt the world around us in order to make sure we as humans survive.

I think that if we all accept eachother (us and the other) as the parasite, perhaps the relationship will change, and we will no longer see one another as an interruption but instead a necessity to life, and the complexities that evolve into something greater.

Professors, the ultimate parasite

In class today we again fell in to this topic of parasites and I realized that in a students like the biggest parasite that we have seen our whole lives is teachers and professors. Throughout our entire lives we have attended school with different teacher taking different classes and I never realized that really these people ingraining knowledge in to our heads are the biggest parasites that will in actuality never ever leave us.

Ever class we take in school, we are obtaining knowledge given to us in the hands of the giver (the prof. the teacher) and they can control what we learn, what we take in, and how we use this information in our every day life. They consume our minds and then really when you think about it, they form you to think a certain way in some cases forever. If I think back to math classes, every math teacher has a way of teaching their students the best way to go about a problem that may be different from another. Yet still to this day if I practice a math problem I have ways in which my mind has been formed to complete these problems that I still stand by.

This parasite of the way we are taught things ultimately changes our perspectives on many things in the world. If a professor chooses to have a bias and spends and entire quarter persuading you subtly to believe in one thing, you are most likely going to be able to see things from this perspective. What professors choose to teach us plays a huge part in how we evolve as people, much like the parasite that takes over our emotions and our thoughts sometimes leaving us to think nothing for ourself.

I must say though in this class our thoughts are left to roam in any way possible. Conversations are so astray that I cannot say this class is parasitic, unless of course we see this form of thinking as a parasite which very well may be true. Prof. Prichard has gotten all of us to begin this thought process that inevitable drives us all nuts because we begin to think the entire world is a parasite and we continue to challenge every thought that we have ever had. So yes, I retract my statement I suppose even this, constant mind boggling class is a parasite because it is again consuming us, and causing us to think in ways that we would not normally think. The world is a parasite… and so is life! Period!

Humans! the worlds worst parasite

I continue to wonder about our discussion yesterday involving this idea of one way relationships. Its hard to think of a relationship that only one subject is receiving a benefit from, Im not sure if this relationship really exists in our world. Then I began to think that it depends on what context were looking at the relationship, and what factors there are to be considered. When I think about any kind of animal we humans use as food, I see a relationship in which we receive food from the animal, and the relationship that the animal receives shelter and food from us. So really in this type of situation I feel like I can confidently say that both are receiving some sort of benefit.

Although, then I continue on this journey of a thought and wonder, as a human, what are the intentions behind giving this animal food and shelter, and does this change the relationship that we have with them. If we are not simply giving them shelter and food to keep them alive, but instead doing it so that we will have a healthy meal in the end, does this count as a two way relationship. What is the animal really receiving at this point, besides being set up for death.

How do we know when the relationship is really benefiting both ways and there is not a selfish intention on one end of this relationship. In the parasite the author discusses this fascinating concept of the human as the parasite. We as humans never see ourselves as the parasite but when I think about life and the way that humans use things around us, we are TOTALLY the parasite. We survive off everything around us, (our host), and things are constantly changing because of what we do with them. We continuously call things that “bother” us in our lives parasites, but what are we to these “parasites.” Are we not a bother to them? Taking their lives in order for us to survive, taking their wood to build our homes, their fur to make our coats, where does it end? What is it that they are taking from us that is so important? We discussed in class things such as trash, and potentially the idea of them being around our homes, but what is it in most cases that drives us to believe they are the parasite?

This author has really made me look at humans in a way I never imagined to. We are all parasites in someones eyes. It just depends on who is looking!