Cats offer a masterclass in unapologetic self-care, boundaries, and finding joy in the simple things. Napping for hours is not lazy; it is essential for recharging your energy. They teach us to enjoy the little things: a sunbeam on the floor, a quiet corner, or a simple box can bring total contentment.
They also teach us that you do not have to pretend to like everyone or stick around for things that don't interest you, and to trust your instincts and your ability to bounce back when you take a big leap.
As Ernest Hemingway once noted, "A cat has absolute emotional honesty: Human beings, for one reason or another, may hide their feelings, but a cat does not."
It's been said that a dog can understand and respond to as many as 210 words and gestures. A cat is somewhat limited in that it only recognizes around 30 or so words, and doesn't give a fuck about any of them...
If you stay indoors, or in a part of the house where they can't go, you become fascinating to cats. If you expect CONSTANT companionship, you become tedious.
ReplyDeleteI've had several that consistently recognized several words, though it's been hard to count how many...but some of them did have some sense of grammar (they clearly recognized, e.g., "cats kill..." as better than "...kill cats").
Many cats also have "words" for us, which most humans fail to recognize. One who technically belonged to neighbors, but spent most of his time around my cat family, had greeting sounds for different humans that sounded as different as "Good morning, Sir" and "Good morning, Ma'am." It was amusing to observe what happened when two kittens who had been well on their way to working out sets of command words to give humans met and realized they were using similar sounds for different things. Both became very *quiet* cats, communicating by gestures and postures rather than "words"!