Highest Parasite
We usually think of a parasite as something that lives off another being, taking what it needs to survive while giving little or nothing in return. But perhaps the idea of the parasite reaches much further. How much of human life is built upon dependence—on other people, institutions, possessions, status, or power?
If our ultimate goal is freedom, what would it mean to become truly self-sufficient? Could we ever live without taking from others? And what if, instead of living at one another’s expense, we learned to give—to see the well-being of others as inseparable from our own? Could such a world begin to resemble paradise?
The Highest Parasite explores these questions through seven stories, each revealing a different form of parasitism—from the most obvious to the most subtle and sophisticated. Through them, the book examines selfishness, dependence, ambition, freedom, and the ways we use one another, often without realizing it.
Yet the world of parasites is not paradise. Paradise begins elsewhere: with the discovery of the divine spark hidden within the human heart.