Praise The Cat
Friday, the sky is overcast. Perhaps we shall see showers, remnants of Helene, the cat 4 hurricane that bisected the Florida panhandle. I must confess schadenfreunde, perverse pleasure at the dread of the climate-warming-denying Florida administration. Nature is dispassionate, reciprocating according to the effect of a consumption based, hydrocarbon ravenous culture which increases the co2 burden on the atmosphere at an accelerating rate. Nature does not care. Florida… Mother Nature says ‘hello’.
I participated in a round table discussion, an extended meditation about cats and cat nature. The Barnes & Noble cafe was inviting for reflecting upon the experience of owning a feline. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the cat-human relationship is ambiguous. Sometimes it seems that the smaller mammal asserts ownership over the larger, “rational” animal. The point of discussion was the carefree, insouciant cat-nature which impresses as inscrutable. Cat nature was contrasted to that of dogs, who are manifestly transactional creatures. Dogs are thoroughly domesticated ‘companions.’ A well adjusted dog could wear a sign about it’s neck, “will work for food.” Never a cat. A cat comes and goes as it pleases, it solicits attention, or sometimes disappearing for hours to hide in a dark closet nook…
Cats have particular interest for me precisely on account of the unpredictability, the anti-rational expression of their personalities. Reason, the self discipline to learn how-to-calculate is celebrated by the ethos of our time. The tools of reason are impressive. The products afforded by algorithmic directed robotics are desired by everyone. Yet my gut tells me that we have pursued this minor deity into an environmental cul-de-sac. With the advent of AI and its further development will humans maintain the fortitude, the will to craft theories, to test the possibilities, to assess options for our future? Artificial Intelligence appears to offer a form of certainty, a predictive, oracular effectiveness which we cannot match.
The cat stands as a symbol of resistance, of the role for an a-rational exuberance, the wild creativity that is an aspect of homo sapiens. A cat displays behavior that just acts without any apparent expectation of reward, that minding-of-accounts attitude which insists upon a balanced transaction.
Each of us has the capacity, a daring to risk telling our own, one-of-a-kind story.
Go ahead! I’ll not be one to stand in your way!
