The Cat Chronicles: Finishing the Task
The kitten just brought me a gift. It was the front half of a frog, with entrails hanging and only one leg left. I was in the middle of about a dozen tasks at the moment that I saw the frog. The task most immediately at hand was making the bed. The kitten was very excited, clawing and scrambling under the bed as she likes to do when it is being made. But then she scrambled her frog half into my vision.
She hasn't brought any large prey into this apartment until now. At the old place she used to catch birds and rodents, sometimes several a day. She would torment them to death, as cats do. Thank goodness for the endogenous opiates which keep all creatures from feeling the pain when they are most certainly being physically destroyed.
I like for Shakti to eat her prey. If she catches it, I figure she should eat it. It is certainly fresher and more nutritious than the brown pebbles I feed her from a bag. She used to eat most of the birds that she caught, but she didn't like the rodents as much. She most likely ate most of the guts and hind end of this frog. I'm hoping that I find any parts she didn't eat before my new housemate does. I got a paper towel and threw away the rest of the frog. I couldn't take the chance that it might get toyed into the wrong corner, where I wouldn't find it again.
As I was doing this, a lightbulb was turning on. I have a tendency to start and not finish things. I knew this already, but it is coming into a finer focus. I love to put things on my list, and that counts in some way as a start, but also as a way of putting it off. I will often gather up the things that I need for a project, and then let them sit around, in the way, while I do something else. What is the point of gathering up the things if I am not going to do the task? Often I will pile up my books as if I am going to read them, or fuss around with other stuff that I need to do, and never actually DO the thing.
The greatest volume of stuff I have hanging around that I have not actually done is READING. I have more books and magazines than anyone needs, and more than half of them are waiting for me to read them. I have a lot of book shelves, and two piles of magazines, one for political mags, and the other for medical ones. I cannot do them justice in any short time period. I probably will not read them all in the rest of my life, though I would like to. I had about 20 books lined up that I wanted to read this summer, and I am currently reading the 3rd one.
The 3rd one is the fattest fiction in the pile (The Deptford Trilogy by Robertson Davies). I read a novel every summer, and every Christmas. Otherwise all I read is nonfiction. Every time I read a novel I think to myself: I should read more fiction, it is enjoyable and educational at the same time. But for the most part I have very interesting nonfiction books about science and culture. I mostly use them for reference, by the index. And if I ever do read a nonfiction cover to cover, I index it myself, noting what topics I found interesting and the page number. But no matter how much I rationalize, my books and magazines have reached such a proportion as to be clutter. They add to my psychic burden.
In feng shui thinking, unfinished things are CLUTTER. To make one's life run as smoothly as possible, to free up one's energy for new projects, to keep one's space and mind fluid, it is beneficial to keep clutter to a minimum. So today will be about finishing things. I'm going to finish as many unfinished things in this household as I can. I have started a whole lot of things, and not all of them will get finished. I will not finish any reading. I am still 200 pages from the end of my novel, and it will have to wait, but for a few chapters, maybe.
On to the finish!!
She hasn't brought any large prey into this apartment until now. At the old place she used to catch birds and rodents, sometimes several a day. She would torment them to death, as cats do. Thank goodness for the endogenous opiates which keep all creatures from feeling the pain when they are most certainly being physically destroyed.
I like for Shakti to eat her prey. If she catches it, I figure she should eat it. It is certainly fresher and more nutritious than the brown pebbles I feed her from a bag. She used to eat most of the birds that she caught, but she didn't like the rodents as much. She most likely ate most of the guts and hind end of this frog. I'm hoping that I find any parts she didn't eat before my new housemate does. I got a paper towel and threw away the rest of the frog. I couldn't take the chance that it might get toyed into the wrong corner, where I wouldn't find it again.
As I was doing this, a lightbulb was turning on. I have a tendency to start and not finish things. I knew this already, but it is coming into a finer focus. I love to put things on my list, and that counts in some way as a start, but also as a way of putting it off. I will often gather up the things that I need for a project, and then let them sit around, in the way, while I do something else. What is the point of gathering up the things if I am not going to do the task? Often I will pile up my books as if I am going to read them, or fuss around with other stuff that I need to do, and never actually DO the thing.
The greatest volume of stuff I have hanging around that I have not actually done is READING. I have more books and magazines than anyone needs, and more than half of them are waiting for me to read them. I have a lot of book shelves, and two piles of magazines, one for political mags, and the other for medical ones. I cannot do them justice in any short time period. I probably will not read them all in the rest of my life, though I would like to. I had about 20 books lined up that I wanted to read this summer, and I am currently reading the 3rd one.
The 3rd one is the fattest fiction in the pile (The Deptford Trilogy by Robertson Davies). I read a novel every summer, and every Christmas. Otherwise all I read is nonfiction. Every time I read a novel I think to myself: I should read more fiction, it is enjoyable and educational at the same time. But for the most part I have very interesting nonfiction books about science and culture. I mostly use them for reference, by the index. And if I ever do read a nonfiction cover to cover, I index it myself, noting what topics I found interesting and the page number. But no matter how much I rationalize, my books and magazines have reached such a proportion as to be clutter. They add to my psychic burden.
In feng shui thinking, unfinished things are CLUTTER. To make one's life run as smoothly as possible, to free up one's energy for new projects, to keep one's space and mind fluid, it is beneficial to keep clutter to a minimum. So today will be about finishing things. I'm going to finish as many unfinished things in this household as I can. I have started a whole lot of things, and not all of them will get finished. I will not finish any reading. I am still 200 pages from the end of my novel, and it will have to wait, but for a few chapters, maybe.
On to the finish!!