Mahatma Gondii

Good evening. Feel free to take a seat. I'm going to talk for a little while.

For tonight's edition of this, the Second of Blog Assignments (is that correct? I feel that there has been some confusion with the amount of blogs happening) I shall detail the things that have happened in my brain since the last correspondence.

And things are happening in my brain.

You will have to excuse me, however, as I'm trying to subdivide thoughts into A) Blog material, and B) Thought Experiment material. I have a dreadful fear of repeating myself and I don't wish to commit this in the near future. I also don't want to go too far into Tomcat Murr tonight because I'm not quite done with it and I want to re-approach it with a cohesive comprehension of the full text. So I'm feeling around in the noggin bucket to see if there are some tasty morsels to expound upon. You know what? Let's just scrape the top of my brain and see what comes off.

I'm really starting to like parasites.

Allow me to back that up. The application of dictionary-defined parasitism has been thrown around liberally this quarter and initially I found this irritating; not everything is a parasite, and making as many claims lessen the significance of 'for-realsies', traditional, creepy-crawly parasites, right?

Nope, your other left. It's opposite. Almost everything is a parasite to something else in one way or the other, and this makes parasitism super-important as a result. Our behaviors as humans, friends, lovers, sign painters, hockey players, porno fluffers, clergy, etc. are often parasitic. Okay, yes, it can be a matter of perception, some see it and others don't, so why bring it up? There's this tricky thing with deconstruction where (and I feel this sometimes happens in class) you can take apart so many pieces you're not left with anything useful. I want to keep some structure to my deconstruction. Anyway, the prevalence of parasitic behavior in this wide, wonderful world of ours means that we are not so different from blood flukes and tapeworms. The way that corporate executive extorted money from all those people (which one, right? There are so many) is a terrible, base, but totally human thing to do. It is just as primal to us as it is to that tape worm. Living is good. We would kinda maybe totally harm other people so that we can keep doing it. Hark! What is this? Perhaps what scares us about those 'creepy crawlies' is not how inhuman they are, but instead frightening because of how much they're like us. Just...tiny and invisible.

I'm going to set that thought down and let it breathe for a while.

I feel like the widened scope of parasitism has freed me up a little so that I can think more freely without having to worry about staying on "the context of parasites". If I do some free-form thinking, like what we do a lot in class, it might just naturally lead back into parasitism, and in new and interesting ways to boot.

Today we talked about Apple’s new iPad and the profound human need for ‘new’ stimuli. If Steve Jobs using a performative utterance in saying something is ‘new’ makes you want to buy it, then that urge is a testament to the pervasive need of the Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger. Mother Nature certainly had the start of that concept, but will an iPad help you outrun a saber-toothed tiger? Yeah, I’m sure there’s an app for that.

I’ve become incredibly technology dependant. Specifically, computer and internet dependant. I play computer games to relax and put off doing anything resembling productivity. Many games exert such a steely grip on me that I cannot imagine doing any other activity until I have resolved that urge. Maybe I’m gripping to it instead. There is gripping in general, I will say. Of course this is similar to drug addiction in several ways, but don’t we all have something we’re addicted to? I can attest that I do not drink coffee, nor consume caffeine on a regular basis. So technology, video games and facebook are only a means to an end for a craving personality. Can we then conclude perhaps that if we seek out a parasite it no longer becomes a parasite? In “The Intruder”, the point is made that one is not intruding if they are expected and welcomed. But how are we to know what we are legitimately seeking out? If we’re talking about Toxoplasma Gondii, then our decision-making process is partially controlled by the parasite.

To bring it back to our technology cravings, perhaps it’s not human nature one-hundred percent of the time. Steve Jobs is putting “iToxo” parasites in our bodies with slideshow presentations of sleek, well-designed and multi-functional products to modify our desires to suit his needs. Ok, backing up: advertising is so, so Toxoplasma Gondii. That must be why they call them “Mad Men”.