This week I’ve been hopping from beach to beach, slurping oysters like a little holiday ritual. And every time I open one, my brain whispers: “Is there a parasite in here?”
The funny thing is the more oysters I ate, the more I realized the real parasites aren’t in the shells. They’re the thoughts that cling to us, the habits that run our reactions, the outdated versions of ourselves still living rent-free in our minds.
The oyster can’t control me. But my unexamined patterns? They absolutely can.
Then came the weirdest question: If we’re the hosts… who do we parasite?
Maybe we parasitize our roles. We stay in them so long we forget they were borrowed. Just like mitochondria living in cells, or language living in our heads, or memories living in our breath.
Life isn’t a hierarchy of hosts and parasites. It’s everyone borrowing everyone. A huge, cosmic Airbnb.
By the last oyster, I realized parasitism isn’t horror it’s intimacy. We borrow a little wisdom from others, they borrow a little light from us, and together, we become the person standing here today.