Herding Cats

Jean-Paul Sartre said hell is other people. He should have got himself a cat. Contrary to what you might conclude from watching a lot of classic cartoons, the real choice in life is not between cats and dogs. The cool cat drops the anvil on the head of the slobbering, stupid dog, the dog kicks the cat the length of a city block; it's good sadistic fun, but really all a shadow play, a tiresome stalking horse of a confrontation that enables us to avoid facing the real issues of life. Like the weather, cats vs. dogs is what people talk about when they're not ready to get down to brass tacks.

 

It's not whether you prefer cats to dogs, it's whether you prefer cats to people. Dogs are only faux people, after all, not man's best friend but man's best clone. Just another animal running in a pack, they get along by going along. The whole basis of our relationship with them is their instinctive willingness to follow us down the street. They can and will switch from their pack to ours automatically; all we have to do is give them a whistle.

 

Is it fair to demand a higher standard of individual integrity than that from a pet? Maybe not. But how about from the pet owner? I'm not bothered that dogs resemble people, but that people resemble dogs. And the tendency to follow the pack is not the main problem with people anyway. Sociability is not a crime. If you're looking for some connection, any connection, there's something to be said for a species that's easy.

 

No, the bigger problem shared by people and dogs is that any relationship with them is so labor intensive. There's no crisp give and take here. Dealing with both species is like playing tag with tar babies. You leave the dog at home alone and he shreds the curtains, you forget the human's birthday and he refuses to speak to you. Too often there's a quid pro quo with these creatures. No matter how hard they wag their tails when they see you, no matter how much they extol unconditional love, there is invariably a burden of neediness and manipulation that you take on from the moment you bring them home from the pound.

 

The dog wags its tail, not really because it likes you but because it needs to be liked, and that, too often, is the way it is with people. They pick the wrong partners because they need to be liked, they try manipulate their partners into loving them, and it all goes for nothing. I know being liked is one of the basic human needs. But when you impose yourself intimately on another human, you can't do it to be liked. Better to do it for sex or money or boredom than to be liked.

 

People should be together because they enjoy each others' company. Realizing the other person likes you is part of that enjoyment, of course, but it's best if that realization is more the unexpected reward of the affair, the delightful surprise payoff, rather than your whole reason for being there.

 

If you can't get step back far enough from a relationship to tell why you're in it, you need to cultivate detachment. Learn to see yourself as others see you. Get a guru, start meditating. Be aware of what you're doing while you're doing it. Aspire to be as self-contained and independent as the cat. You may get there in this life, or you may have to wait for your next incarnation to achieve this higher plane, but it is possible.

 

Think of the way of the cat as a spiritual discipline, a difficult path that offers potentially large personal rewards. More people prefer dogs than cats, polls show, and I think it's because dogs represent the easy way out. They are a comfort to us. We're reassured by them because they're not a smidgeon any better than we are. They resemble us in every embarrassing detail.

 

Dogs resemble people, and cats resemble the universe. In their fundamental indifference they challenge us to set aside our neediness and take a stance as independent as their own. They ask us to engage them from a position of strength as emotional equals. They demand that we grow up.

 

A lot of people fail to rise to the challenge. It's no surprise that many cat lovers become much more infantile around their pets than dog lovers do. The cat in its removed superiority is subconsciously so intimidating that its owners are reduced to baby talk and obsequious catering to the animal's every perceived whim. The cat itself remains indifferent, accepting the kowtowing as no more than its due.

 

I'm not saying cats are incapable of affection or that it's all take and no give with them. Cats aren't totally indifferent, but their motives are so pure that people that people are taken aback by their simplicity and directness. I don't think, for example, that when cats lick the hand that pets them they're just asking for more petting. I think they are genuinely feeling and expressing affection. They just don't care deeply about what you make of the gesture. What the cat wants it wants, what it feels it feels, and there are no extraneous strings attached.

 

If the cat wants to be on the table and you don't want it there, saying "no" won't keep it off the table, and taking it off the table repeatedly won't keep it from trying to get back up there. By the same token, the cat isn't going to sulk about being thrown off the table or even, apparently, give it a second thought. Scold a dog and it will cringe guiltily; scold a cat and it will stare at you blankly.

 

This is an emotionally straightforward creature, an animal that doesn't play games. Like the weather, this animal may smile on you one day and absolutely refuse to do what you want the next, and none of it is personal. Cat owners come to terms with this. They learn to ride the ups and downs of their animal's whims like surfers riding a wave. They learn not to fight the flow of daily interactions, they learn to compromise, just as the wise man learns not to fight the caprices of the universe.

 

So this is a model for human relationships? Just go with the impersonal flow? Well, if the surf gets too rough you get out of the ocean. But yes, I say this beats trying to change the break of the wave. You use the surfboard to ride the wave, that's what it's there for. You can always manipulate your surfboard. But you can't manipulate the surf, or make people like you, or rebuild love by rebuilding your lover, any more than you can herd cats.