Top Quotes: “Feline Philosophy: Cats and the Meaning of Life” — John Gray

“When turned in on itself, consciousness stands in the way or a good life. Self-consciousness has divided the human mind in an unceasing attempt to force painful experiences into a part that is sealed off from awareness. Suppressed pain festers in questions about the meaning of life. In contrast, the feline mind is one and undivided. Pain is suffered and forgotten, and the joy of life returns. Cats do not need to examine their lives, because they do not doubt that life is worth living. Human self-conscious-ness has produced the perpetual unrest that philosophy has vainly tried to cure.”

“The genome of house cats differs in only a small number of ways from that of its wild kin. Their legs are somewhat shorter and their coats more variously coloured. Even so, as Abigail Tucker has noted, ‘Cats have changed so little physically during their time among people that even today experts often can’t tell house tabbies from wild cats. This greatly complicates the study of cat domestication. It’s all but impossible to pinpoint the cats’ transition into human life by examining ancient fossils, which hardly change even into modernity.

Unless they are kept indoors, the behaviour of house cats is not much different from that of wild cats. Though the cat may regard more than one house as home, the house is the base where it feeds, sleeps and gives birth. There are clear territorial boundaries, larger for male cats than for females, which will be defended against other cats when necessary. The brains of house cats have diminished in size compared with their wild counterparts, but that does not make house cats less intelligent or adaptable. Since it is the part of the brain that includes the fight-or-flight response that has shrunk, house cats have become able to tolerate situations that would be stressful in the wild, such as encountering humans and unrelated cats.

One reason cats were accepted by humans was their usefulness in reducing rodent populations. Cats eat rodents, and thousands of years ago were already eating mice that had eaten grain from human food stores. Yet in many environments cats and rodents are not natural enemies, and when they interact they often share a common resource such as household garbage. Cats are not very efficient as a means of pest control. House mice may have co-evolved with house cats, and learned to coexist with them.”

“Cats need meat to live. They can digest vital fatty acids only when these are found in the flesh of other animals.”

“They come together to mate, they are born in families and where there are reliable food sources they may form colonies. When several cats live in the same space a dominant cat may emerge. Cats may compete ferociously for territory and mates. But there are none of the settled hierarchies that shape interactions among humans and their close evolutionary kin. Unlike chimps and gorillas, cats do not produce alpha specimens or leaders. Where necessary, they will cooperate in order to satisfy their wants, but they do not merge themselves into any social group. There are no feline packs or herds, flocks or congregations.

That cats acknowledge no leaders may be one reason they do not submit to humans. They neither obey nor revere the human beings with which so many of them now cohabit. Even as they rely on us, they remain independent of us. If they show affection for us, it is not just cupboard love. If they do not enjoy our company, they leave. If they stay, it is because they want to be with us. This too is a reason why many of us cherish them.”

“The risk to birds can be diminished by bells and similar devices.”

“Whereas cats live by following their nature, humans live by suppressing theirs.”

“Unless they are confined within environments that are unnatural for them, cats are never bored. Boredom is fear of being alone with yourself. Cats are happy being themselves; humans are happy by escaping themselves.”

“He also designed the first urban mass-transit system using horse-drawn buses, which operated in Paris for a time.”

“As predators, a highly developed sense of empathy would be dysfunctional for cats. That is why they lack this capacity. It is also why the popular belief that cats cruel is mistaken.”

“Sexual contact between male and female cats lasts a few moments, and is not followed by a life together. Except in the case of lions, who may protect their cubs, male cats take no part in bringing up their offspring. As soon as the kittens have learned the necessary skills from their mother, they leave for life on their own.”

“The Prophet Muhammad is reputed to have cut off a sleeve so that he would not disturb a cat sleeping on it.”

“The Russian writer Varlam Shalamov, who survived for fifteen years in Arctic Gulag camps where winter temperatures routinely fell below 50 degrees Centigrade and the average lifespan was around three years, observed that a few weeks of extreme cold, hunger, overwork and beatings were enough to destroy the humanity in any human being. Aside from isolated examples of kindness, there is nothing in Shalamov’s account of the resilience of ‘the human spirit.’”