The Litterbox Diaries
To begin by stating the painfully obvious, the great thinkers and foundation-layers for western philosophy were men. And I don’t mean this to point out that they were not women; this is not a gender-based idea. What I mean to say is that they were not cats. Specifically, Socrates, and Plato were not cats. However, whenever I am reading an article or discussion by or about one of the aforementioned philosophers, I almost always picture them as pencil-drawn, lead-smudged, cartoon cats with ever-present goofy grins and crossed eyes. Most of the time, I don’t even realize that I’m doing this, it’s been so engrained in my mind. It is only when I see artists’ renditions and marble busts of these men that I think to myself, “Wait…he’s not a fucking cat?”
This isn’t a random habit that I have, formed out of the vacuum of the unconscious mind. I know exactly why I do this. I do this because when I was in elementary school (what grade exactly, I don’t remember), Greg and I used to draw cartoons and comic strips together. And, after learning to (somewhat) accurately draw Jim Davis’ Garfield, Greg lived briefly under the belief that cats were the only creatures worth drawing. During this torrid and unstable period in our creative partnership, one day as we sat at his kitchen table, Greg showed me his latest additions to the cartoon-cat universe he so hoped to become a pioneer in, two characters by the names of Plato and Socrates. I don’t know what Greco-Roman Philosophy conventions Greg was attending as a grade-schooler, but I had never heard these names before in my life and, to be perfectly honest, thought they were a little uninspired. "Any fool with the sense God gave a tree stump could have thought of Play-Doh and Soccer Tees", I probably thought to myself. The cartoons weren’t exceptional in appearance or artistic skill, and I can’t recall ever seeing them again past this one meeting of minds, but for some inexplicable reason the images of these cats has remained with me and come to mind every time I hear either name mentioned, either in casual conversation or a university setting. So thank you to my ridiculously selective memory for reducing my mental representation of some of the greatest minds this world has ever known to nothing more than a little kid’s Garfield knock-off.
This isn’t a random habit that I have, formed out of the vacuum of the unconscious mind. I know exactly why I do this. I do this because when I was in elementary school (what grade exactly, I don’t remember), Greg and I used to draw cartoons and comic strips together. And, after learning to (somewhat) accurately draw Jim Davis’ Garfield, Greg lived briefly under the belief that cats were the only creatures worth drawing. During this torrid and unstable period in our creative partnership, one day as we sat at his kitchen table, Greg showed me his latest additions to the cartoon-cat universe he so hoped to become a pioneer in, two characters by the names of Plato and Socrates. I don’t know what Greco-Roman Philosophy conventions Greg was attending as a grade-schooler, but I had never heard these names before in my life and, to be perfectly honest, thought they were a little uninspired. "Any fool with the sense God gave a tree stump could have thought of Play-Doh and Soccer Tees", I probably thought to myself. The cartoons weren’t exceptional in appearance or artistic skill, and I can’t recall ever seeing them again past this one meeting of minds, but for some inexplicable reason the images of these cats has remained with me and come to mind every time I hear either name mentioned, either in casual conversation or a university setting. So thank you to my ridiculously selective memory for reducing my mental representation of some of the greatest minds this world has ever known to nothing more than a little kid’s Garfield knock-off.