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diff --git a/posts/the-cat.md b/posts/the-cat.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c3ffd40 --- /dev/null +++ b/posts/the-cat.md @@ -0,0 +1,65 @@ +title: The Cat +date: 2016-08-04T10:49:20Z +author: Wolfgang Müller + +One should live in a house like a cat, finding repose on almost every +surface. To the cat, the whole house is a shelter. Every table, every +sofa, every chair, every bed, indeed every floor is an invitation to +find some rest. Do we not find cats, again and again, in the most +unusual and unexpected places? We find them there, lying and sleeping +with a kind of lightness and peace as if they themselves had designed +that space specifically for them. We find them there snugly in a ball, +breathing softly to themselves and relaxing their claws. + +Now, in this instance, they need them not. In this instance the whole +world around them, usually a cat's plaything and center of attention, +ceases to exist almost, as if they, in their peaceful huddledness, +transcended life and entered the realm of daydreaming. A human realm, +not an animal one. Of which things do they dream? Do they dream of the +mouse that eluded them in the existential battle for life and retreated +back to its hole, its own shelter? Do they maybe dream of the fields in +which they were kings and queens, unchallenged monarchs of old? + +Truly there is something kingly about cats; a certain evolutionary +dignity. How is it that they live content with beings displaying even +greater hubris? Or maybe they just want to learn? How innocent, though, +in their pursuit of this. How unburdened, how free. Whom do they see +when they look at us? What do they feel when we talk to them? + +Can it be that it is only instinct that drives them? They exhibit such +humanness, they exhibit an animal soul. It is a purer soul, a more +simple one, but it is a soul. What do they feel when we gently stroke +their fur with our hands? Do they feel the same kind of love? How is it +to live a cat's life? + +I said earlier that cats lie down to repose anywhere. Like a human, +however, they have their favourite spots. Always these spots have a +distinctly human element. It is the small opening under our beds that +we so cherished as a child, dreaming of and building at the same time +a warm and safe den ourselves. It is next to our spot on the sofa, as +if we radiated a familiarity and comfort there even in our absence. +It is in the bags we use for our shopping, the suitcases we use for +travelling. + +It is on our discarded clothes on the table, floor, chair or bed, as +if they wanted to absorb the fragrances of our lives and thus come +closer to our person. It is our smell that is home to them, our ``having +lived'' in something, on something, that is so dear to them. Maybe +they want to feel the pain that was inflicted upon us, or the joy and +happiness that was diffused through the clothes as we wore them. They +are not all without us, and while we are gone they are emptier inside +for the loss, seeking refuge, seeking a nest, seeking shelter from the +rain in the touched and transformed things we left behind. We are their +mothers and fathers to them, we are their family. This bond transcends +species, it is therefore something inherent in life. It is a soulful +longing for nearness, a longing for exchange of life, and what makes +life what it is. + +My cats cannot comprehend what I have written here, but I believe +fully that they feel the same way. The cat hair on my clothes is their +attempt at sharing this warmness, this closeness. And when the cat +lies down close to me and purrs with all the excellence of beauty and +reverberation, then I feel loved in the universe and want to share that +love. Maybe in this simplicity we should look for love and give it back +with all our heart. Maybe in this simplicity we have found the core of +us and the dignified true expression of the animal, and of nature. |