|
The first step towards learning to truly love others is learning to love oneself. No one can understand how important life and dignity truly are without first appreciating what they mean to oneself.
Dogs "care" because they are programmed to. No one considers being called a "dog" a compliment. It implies a slavish and shameless mentality.
Cats, contrary to popular perception, do in fact deeply care about their humans. They are merely too proud to admit it directly.
Cats will search for their humans if they are gone for long periods, even if a food supply and the presence of other humans are a given. Cats care deeply about the approval of their humans - they will bring them surprise gifts from time to time (vanquished prey). If the gift is refused (as it usually is) the cat is confused and insulted.
When a cat believes it has done wrong, it will show remorse by hiding under furniture and sticking out its tail; the implication being, the cat is ashamed to show its face but wants to let the human know that it's not attempting to hide. It is not necessary to threaten the cat in order to evoke this behavior - merely express strong displeasure. Cats do not like having their boundaries violated, and they truly understand that humans feel the same way.
Cats see themselves as the equals of humans, and as such they expect to be treated with the same respect. They enjoy the experience of bathing and the feeling of being clean, but they despise the indignity of being plunged into the drink or forcibly cleaned by humans, even if they appreciate the inherent utility.
Because they see themselves as the natural equals of humans, cats believe their relationship with the human is based on mutual respect, and as such, they have a profound need to be enfranchised in human social settings such as eating and communal meetings. Cats are much more possessive and territorial than humans, so they often find human social conventions such as having guests over or the human notion of the extended family very strange and confusing. (Cats believe that the appropriate place to stage a meeting is on the borders of one's territory or in neutral zones, and not in the house, which they see as the deep interior of their territory). That doesn't change the fact that the cat's stake in the matter is its relationship with its human and what the human means to the cat besides food and shelter.
Dogs, by contrast, have no real ego, and will suffer any indignity on the whims of their owners. In that sense, dogs are mere objects. After all, what defines an individual is having an agenda, personal wants and needs and self-perceived rights and expectations.
It is because cats have ego that they are worthwhile companions. As the saying goes, "a friend is another self"...and without a sense of self, that's not much of a friend.
At least in my (very long) book.
Aestu of Bleeding Hollow... Nihilism is a copout.
Last edited by Aestu on Tue Feb 28, 2012 1:10 pm, edited 3 times in total.
|
