It keeps following me.

Gongshi, or scholar's rocks, are particularly aesthetic phenomena in nature. In all likelihood you have stumbled across one in your life. Skipping rocks. Canoeing. Dodging pedos at summer camp. At some point in your life-adventure you came across a misshapen object, a rock that was seemingly put in that place for a reason. A divine reason. Did you take it home? Did you hold it in your palm, admire it and then toss it away?

Whichever you did, what does it say about you?

“Get that dirty thing out of here!” "What's that stupid shit?" "Where'd you find that?" What were you waiting to hear when you dragged your scholar's rock back home? Did that impact whether you bring it along with you in the first place?

Do you resent the person you envisioned saying that?

It keeps following me.

Scholar's rocks don’t have to be geologically formed. Stone or not, you likely have a scholar's rock lying around somewhere next to you. Things that are just as silently clinging. A t-shirt from college. A chef's knife. That hot sauce from who-knows-when. Certain things are meant to stay with us long past their primes. For whatever reason they just seem to follow us. They win the argument of whether they've run their course.

I believe in ghosts. Not the kinds that conceal themselves under a bedsheet or those green piles of floating splooge in Ghostbusters - the ghosts I believe in haunt us continuously. If the spirit realm truly exists, what better way to let us know than by reminding us every day? Scholar's rocks - they're really a conduit for ghosts. Ghosts are memories, both good and bad. The scariest ghosts are ideas. Forgotten dreams, future aspirations - fantasies. General angst. They manifest themselves only when they are called upon.

I have ghosts - do you?

It keeps following me.

This idea is not my own. It does not belong to the Chinese, who were not the first ones to admire the beauty of a rock that has been slowly chiseled by the power of erosion. The idea belongs to no one - ghosts like these have always existed, will always exist. Odysseus chased one for 20 years. Ben Affleck has been facing his for half a decade. But one person did disclose these ghosts to me, the spirits that haunt us without us noticing (until they become too loud to ignore). And no, this person does not work for the Discovery channel.

I thank Bong Joon-Ho for introducing me to the spirit realm. At long last Bong has been identified as a master of cinema on an international scale. His meteoric rise to the public conscious in America was brought about by the phenomenon that Parasite was and continues to be. It's good. Really good. Like, the best movie I've ever seen good.

Parasite is whatever you want it to be. A horror film. A comedic joyride! Social commentary. A combination of all of those things - or none of them. Each time I watch it (an unhealthy amount), I find something different. Most recently, I found a ghost story.

Ki-Woo didn't ask to be haunted. The scholar's rock which serves as a conduit for his own ghost, the ghost of poverty, is thrust onto him by his friend Min-Hyuk, a posh university student who’s departing to study abroad in whatever-country-his-advisor-deems-'culturally-significant'. Meanwhile Ki-Woo is stuck living at home with his parents, forming a career by folding pizza boxes - the very bottom rung of any pizza-based economic venture. There's no work for him. Not for people like Ki-Woo. People like him are inconsequential - he is among those who suffer the consequences, not direct them. He doesn’t have the money or the grades to check into college - not that it would matter. Even college graduates are struggling to find work. But all of the sudden, things change. Life changes. Ki-Woo finds hope - hope for a better future.

WARNING: I don't want to spoil Parasite for those who haven't already seen it. You'll get more out of an unbridled viewing experience than you will by reading my take on it. So seriously - stop now and go watch it if you haven't seen it yet.

Ki-Woo gets his chance when Min-Hyuk asks him to replace him as the tutor of a high school student under the false-pretense that he is, in fact, a college student. Luckily for Ki-Woo, the girl's family is totally oblivious to the fact that he's... well, not. Poor. Inconsequential.

Ki-Woo becomes a parasite. He leeches off the family, and even brings his own family into the scam to help drain the blood faster. Life instantly improves. He has spending money, starts eating good and worrying less. His ‘student’ becomes his girlfriend - he'll 'officially' ask her out once she graduates (wouldn't want to leave a bad impression on the future in-laws). Ki-Woo''s left behind the ghost of poverty and is all of the sudden chasing a new one - the ghost of the future. Potentialities. He begins envisioning himself as being amongst the privileged, those who make the decisions and don't have to worry about the consequences. Say, this whole 'parasite' thing's going pretty well - why risk losing it? Parents who are that wealthy have to support their daughter and their son-in-law, right? Maybe one day he will live in the big fancy house where his student - ahem girlfriend - lives. He'll even adopt a Western name - Kevin works. It's an enticing fantasy, a ghost that Ki-Woo welcomes eagerly.

But fantasies rarely become reality. It all comes crashing down, fast. A subterranean organism threatens to ruin his upward economic projectile. The shit-gutter basement he and his family live in all of the sudden gets flooded with... well, shit. Consequently he goes to live in a makeshift camp in a gymnasium, amongst vagrants like him. He's sent back to reality, to reembrace the ghost of his past. The further you fall, the more it hurts. In this case, Ki-Woo falls from a great height, back to life as he knew it, as he has always known it. Bang! goes the Poverty Hammer.

And that fucking rock just just won’t leave him alone.

What’s Ki-Woo thinking?

Why do I feel this way?

What will tomorrow be like?

What will I be like?

But there's still hope. The ghost of the future is still there. It's just hiding, imprisoned. It must be the rock. A gift.

It keeps following me.

It's followed him all this why - why abandon him now? Shame, shame on it. If I wait long enough maybe it will come back.. Ding!

Da-Hae: mom says were having a party tomorrow for da-songs birthday. hope you can come... see u then! :)

Ki-Woo shoves the stone into his bookbag.

Hope.

The party's lame. Mostly parents worshipping Da-Song as if it was God who occupied his toddler body. Still - there's something that must be done. Something that lies in his wake. Kill the other parasite. To the victors go the spoils. Ki-Woo descends to the basement, to detach himself from the enemy subterranean threat.

The plan does not go well.

Ki-Woo wakes up in the hospital. A detective reads him his rights. He hears the news. His sister, Ki-Jung... his father, missing...

Ki-Woo begins laughing.

Long after he leaves the hospital, he's still laughing.

To the victors go the spoils. We know it to be true. The Mongols. Google, Apple, Amazon. The Koch brothers. Bong knows this as well. He believes that the victors among us are predetermined. Ki-Woo cannot escape the ghost of his past, the ghost of poverty. Any delusions of grandeur he had were nothing more than that. He cannot claim victory now - the winners have already been selected. Past, present, future - Bong is saying that it's all the same for people like Ki-Woo.

When Ki-Woo realizes this, he stops laughing. There is nothing to laugh about. Nothing at all. Once the shock drains out of his system he finds a new voice. A voice of determination. Fuck predestination. Fuck the winners. I will be self-made. Ki-Woo will not sit and grovel underneath people who society has deemed more important than he. He is going to take control. The ghost of the future is gone, the scholar's rock gone with it. The ghost of the past is dead. He will make it that way. He decides to chase the ghost of his present. Ki-Woo will gain skills. Skills with which to arm himself. When he is ready, Ki-Woo will demonstrate his authority.

  -

We're all either chasing or running from our ghosts. Perhaps you're doing both at the same time. Maybe one exists because of the other. Not all ghosts are bad; they might scream or yell, helping or hurting you. But ghosts determine who and what we are, what we will be. We must be aware of their presence.

"Get that dirty thing out of here!" "What's that stupid shit?" "Where'd you find that?"

These words are crushing. They impact us. That's why we hide our ghosts from one another, or try our best to do so. But there's nothing to be ashamed of. So what if they say our lives are predetermined? That doesn’t warrant that we simply give up. We can leave the past behind, change what’s here now. Each of us is here to make our own mark on the universe. It may be harder for some to do so, but that's why we have each other. We can help one other build our own present, our own ‘now’. We can help sway our futures in the right direction.

It's hard to tell what ghosts the person next to you has. How will they affect you? How will you affect them? The only way to know is by asking. Ask what they are chasing, what they're running from. What they are. Then ask yourself: have I met that ghost? You might find some hidden connection.

What lies ahead?