From 4fe23d93c4f39b08f5bc4320af37ba109e618295 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Wolfgang Müller
Date: Sun, 21 Jul 2019 21:09:36 +0200
Subject: Initial import

---
 posts/the-cat.md | 65 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 1 file changed, 65 insertions(+)
 create mode 100644 posts/the-cat.md

(limited to 'posts/the-cat.md')

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.
-- 
cgit v1.2.3-2-gb3c3