Parasite opened my eyes to the involuntary thoughts a comfortable life has instilled in me — and just how toxic they can be.

I was finally able to watch Parasite in theaters, and yes… it’s definitely the most deserving winner of Best Picture that I’ve ever had the privilege to watch. Bong Joon-ho crafts a series of fascinating and utterly unexpected twists in this story about the extremes of wealth and poverty, and how it pits people against each other — the rich against the poor, the poor against the rich, the poor against each other. While it starts out as a funny comedy, around the midway point, it suddenly turns into psychological horror, and it sugarcoats nothing.

Spoilers for Parasite below. Seriously, go watch it if you haven’t already.

This is probably the most uncomfortable I’ve been while writing an article about a movie that I love, because it forced me to confront an ugly part of myself: a part of me that was nurtured by how easy some aspects of my life have been, and has framed the world in a certain way to cast me in a good light.

As disturbing as many scenes in Parasite are, what shocked me the most was the way I tried to rationalize what happened on screen. As the main characters scrambled to profit from the rich family, I thought: Why don’t they just make money patiently?

As they settled into the rich family’s home, enjoying food while its owners were on a camping trip, I thought: It’s such a bad idea to just gorge themselves on what’s within their reach.

As they learned more about the family hiding in the basement, I thought: What’s wrong with them? Why can’t they just be kind and strike a deal?

And, worst of all, as Parasite drew to a close: Everything would have turned out okay if they had just stayed honest.

I had these thoughts involuntarily throughout Parasite, as I prepared for the inevitable showdown. In a capitalistic society, it’s so easy to let ourselves believe that wealth and comfort are intrinsically tied to goodness; that the fact that some have it all while others have nothing isn’t, in fact, a unforgivable injustice — but some kind of moral hierarchy.

No matter how aware of the falsity of this concept we try to be, it’s incredibly hard to shake toxic thoughts like these. They worm their way into your brain. And I think that’s exactly what Bong Joon-ho wants us to realize.

Now that I’ve watched Parasite, I can’t stop comparing my thoughts to the ones of all the rich characters in the movie — indeed, to all the privileged people in the real world, myself included: those of us who don’t have to worry about our homes flooding in the night, about about not having enough food to eat, about keeping ourselves safe from people who want to hurt us.

It’s thoughts like that: Why don’t they just play nice? Why can’t they be more patient? Or worse… They deserved it… the thoughts that stretch out that gap between the rich and the poor.

Because it wouldn’t have all turned out right if they had just sat tight. With all the money that the old housekeeper was making at her 24/7 job, she couldn’t pay off her husband’s loans and get him out of the basement. How would that same amount have done anything for the new family? The amount of money Min was making was probably akin to pocket money — he didn’t really need it the way that Ki-woo did.

The main characters struggled to make ends meet their whole lives. They were accustomed to having the rug pulled out from under them, over and over again. Now that they finally had food and comfort at hand, how could anyone expect them to just wait for something better to come? In their experience, food and comfort was fleeting. It was best to enjoy it while it lasted.

The worst part about the gap between the rich and the poor is the way it pits people against each other — the way that it demands ruthlessness to survive. Parasite’s dialogue during the dinner in the rain was one of the most eye-opening conversations I’ve ever heard in a movie. When you have everything, it’s easy to be “nice” (at least superficially). You don’t need to make difficult choices.

Our society tells people that you’re either a winner or a loser… you either help someone get their things out of the flood, or you help yourself. You either lie, or you starve. There is no “common good”, because society isn’t set up that way. So of course the two families in the face-off in the basement wouldn’t have the first instinct to be compassionate. They would be terrified of losing everything.

And most toxic of all is the naive assumption that honesty always brings material wealth. If I were in the shoes of the rich family and I learned the truth, what would I have done? Would I have helped those people? Would I have forgiven them, had I learned about their struggles? Would I have done anything at all?

The scariest thing about Parasite, to me, is how thoughtless most of the injustices committed by the rich family are. Most of the ways that they hurt others didn’t come from a desire to be cruel — they just didn’t realize what they were doing because they were so removed from the other family’s reality.

What do youdo, every time it rains and it’s someone’s birthday? Do you think of all the disadvantaged people who probably suffered because of the rain and do something about it? Or do you help organize your loved one’s party?

The only difference between that situation and everyday situations is that usually, those two segments of society hardly ever come in contact with each other.

I don’t have a life like the rich family in Parasite. But I also don’t have a life like the poor family. And it disturbed me to realize how often my instincts pushed me to side with the rich; because that’s a more comfortable reality, a more comfortable vision of what life is. For that family, the incident at the birthday party was a freak accident — not the culmination of generations of injustice. A little therapy, a little cleanup, and most of those people can go back to their old lives and leave everyone else to starve.

After watching Parasite, am I just going back to my old life, too?