{"id":466,"date":"2011-12-05T18:59:22","date_gmt":"2011-12-05T18:59:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/carol.bennette.org\/feeders\/?p=466"},"modified":"2012-02-18T22:52:59","modified_gmt":"2012-02-18T22:52:59","slug":"the-tapeworm-metaphor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/carol.bennette.org\/feeders\/the-tapeworm-metaphor","title":{"rendered":"The Tapeworm Metaphor"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_479\" style=\"width: 210px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/carol.bennette.org\/feeders\/the-tapeworm-metaphor\/mammal-tapeworm-by-d-kunkel\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-479\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-479\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-479\" title=\"A champion feeder, the tapeworm is a kind of parasite that lives on the food in the human gut.\" src=\"http:\/\/carol.bennette.org\/feeders\/wp-content\/uploads\/Mammal-tapeworm-by-D.-Kunkel-200x200.jpg\" alt=\"A champion feeder, the tapeworm is a kind of parasite that lives on the food in the human gut.\" width=\"200\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/carol.bennette.org\/feeders\/wp-content\/uploads\/Mammal-tapeworm-by-D.-Kunkel-200x200.jpg 200w, https:\/\/carol.bennette.org\/feeders\/wp-content\/uploads\/Mammal-tapeworm-by-D.-Kunkel-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/carol.bennette.org\/feeders\/wp-content\/uploads\/Mammal-tapeworm-by-D.-Kunkel.jpg 360w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-479\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A champion feeder, the tapeworm is a kind of parasite that lives on the food in the human gut.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>A champion feeder, the tapeworm is a type of parasite that lives on the food in the human gut. As the worm grows larger, it provides chemical markers to its host that cause the host to eat more food while at the same time hiding the parasite from detection, convincing the body that the worm is actually part of the body. Eventually the worm grows so large that the host cannot provide enough food for it and the worm feeds on its host until both die of starvation.<\/p>\n<p>The salient metaphoric concepts to consider here are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The host is completely unaware of the parasite until it&#8217;s too late (assuming no modern medical intervention).<\/li>\n<li>The parasite controls the system &#8211; telling the host brain to eat more of what the parasite likes.<\/li>\n<li>The host often defends the parasite as a necessary part of the body.<\/li>\n<li>Eventually, the parasite kills the host &#8211; both by eating its flesh and through starvation.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The tapeworm is an effective parasite to the physical body because it can hide and then become part of the host body.<\/p>\n<p>What would such a parasite look like in the emotional\/mental realms? Would you recognize it if you had one? As the physical tapeworm parasite hides itself using chemical markers, I doubt you&#8217;d perceive a mental\/emotional parasite if you had one.<\/p>\n<p>What would such a parasite &#8220;look\/act like?&#8221; How would you know if you had one? How could you prevent infestation? And most importantly, how could you rid yourself of it if you had one?<\/p>\n<p>More on this subject later&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A champion feeder, the tapeworm is a type of parasite that lives on the food in the human gut. As the worm grows larger, it provides chemical markers to its host that cause the host to eat more food while at the same time hiding the parasite from detection, convincing the body that the worm is actually part of the body. Eventually the worm grows so large that the host cannot provide enough food for it and the worm feeds on its host until both die of starvation. <a href=\"https:\/\/carol.bennette.org\/feeders\/the-tapeworm-metaphor\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-philosophy","category-thoughts-on-feeding"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carol.bennette.org\/feeders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carol.bennette.org\/feeders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carol.bennette.org\/feeders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carol.bennette.org\/feeders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carol.bennette.org\/feeders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=466"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/carol.bennette.org\/feeders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1132,"href":"https:\/\/carol.bennette.org\/feeders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466\/revisions\/1132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carol.bennette.org\/feeders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carol.bennette.org\/feeders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carol.bennette.org\/feeders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}