Cogito Ergo Cat
I think, therefore I am.
For now let's assume that's true. I know I think, because I'm writing this stupid journal entry. I know my cat thinks, because he spends his life devising complicated plans to get the catnip that's in my closet, and most of them work. So my cat and I both think, therefore we both exist. I know I want to continue existing, therefore I can assume that my cat also wants to continue existing.
If I were on the verge of death and there was nothing I could do to save myself, my friends and family would band together and do whatever they could to keep me alive. It wouldn't be because they believed they could defeat death, or because they thought that they somehow could prevent me from dying altogether in the end. They'd just do it because that's what people do. They like to cling to things, and if they can fight to survive, then they will. A cynical person might even say that they would save me for selfish reasons -- because they like me around and they don't want to deal with me being gone. They'd save me just to assuage the guilt of not saving me. Well, I think that's okay too.
HERE'S THE PROBLEM:
When a cat is on the verge of death, things go a little differently. Even though cats have the same will to live as the rest of us, they and their cat friends can't do a thing about it. Their human friends experience a conundrum. What are we supposed to do, since the cat is going to die anyway? In the natural order of things, he would probably have died on his own long ago. It's silly to put all sorts of time and money into helping a creature that we pretty much just keep around to amuse us. See, perfectly logical people start making arguments that would be absolutely sick and delusional if applied to another human being.
When I was 12, I had cancer. Can you even imagine how horrifying it would have been if my mom had said, "Well, she's human, we all knew she was going to die anyway." That is CRAZY. We have SCIENCE. We didn't even have the money for hospital bills, but guess what, we came up with it.
So my cat is going to die eventually. When people say that, I think they're imagining a nice pleasant death-by-sleep. But here's the truth: My cat has diabetes and is starving to death. When he makes those horrible pitiful noises in the middle of the night, it's not because he's being whiny, it's because he's dying and it hurts.
And for the low, low price of $50 a month, I can make that not happen anymore. Not that I have $50 a month to spend, but let's pretend I cut out the entire Stupid Shit portion of my budget to pay $50 a month for cat needles and cat insulin and weird mail-order cat food. That basically translates to: I cut back on the Starbucks. My cat gets to live.
I just want you to understand I'm not insane for doing that. The people who think I'm insane are insane. Like I said earlier: It's not because I think I can conquer cat-death, or because I think this is a sensible thing to do with the meager amount of money I make. It's because I'm human, and this life is largely a story I tell myself in order to feel better about the things I don't understand, and if I want to donate fifty useless green pieces of paper a month to the delusion that I have some control over the wellbeing of my friends, who are really just specks in the universe anyway, then that's exactly what I'm going to do. I know I'm going to be a crazy old cat lady one day, so call it the first step to accepting my destiny.
I'm really just posting this because my family thinks this is the stupidest idea ever, and for some reason it's making me Think About My Existence and be emo and I feel like I'm going crazy. No thanks to YOU, Neon Genesis Evangelion! (Just kidding. It is tasty and people should watch it.)
For now let's assume that's true. I know I think, because I'm writing this stupid journal entry. I know my cat thinks, because he spends his life devising complicated plans to get the catnip that's in my closet, and most of them work. So my cat and I both think, therefore we both exist. I know I want to continue existing, therefore I can assume that my cat also wants to continue existing.
If I were on the verge of death and there was nothing I could do to save myself, my friends and family would band together and do whatever they could to keep me alive. It wouldn't be because they believed they could defeat death, or because they thought that they somehow could prevent me from dying altogether in the end. They'd just do it because that's what people do. They like to cling to things, and if they can fight to survive, then they will. A cynical person might even say that they would save me for selfish reasons -- because they like me around and they don't want to deal with me being gone. They'd save me just to assuage the guilt of not saving me. Well, I think that's okay too.
HERE'S THE PROBLEM:
When a cat is on the verge of death, things go a little differently. Even though cats have the same will to live as the rest of us, they and their cat friends can't do a thing about it. Their human friends experience a conundrum. What are we supposed to do, since the cat is going to die anyway? In the natural order of things, he would probably have died on his own long ago. It's silly to put all sorts of time and money into helping a creature that we pretty much just keep around to amuse us. See, perfectly logical people start making arguments that would be absolutely sick and delusional if applied to another human being.
When I was 12, I had cancer. Can you even imagine how horrifying it would have been if my mom had said, "Well, she's human, we all knew she was going to die anyway." That is CRAZY. We have SCIENCE. We didn't even have the money for hospital bills, but guess what, we came up with it.
So my cat is going to die eventually. When people say that, I think they're imagining a nice pleasant death-by-sleep. But here's the truth: My cat has diabetes and is starving to death. When he makes those horrible pitiful noises in the middle of the night, it's not because he's being whiny, it's because he's dying and it hurts.
And for the low, low price of $50 a month, I can make that not happen anymore. Not that I have $50 a month to spend, but let's pretend I cut out the entire Stupid Shit portion of my budget to pay $50 a month for cat needles and cat insulin and weird mail-order cat food. That basically translates to: I cut back on the Starbucks. My cat gets to live.
I just want you to understand I'm not insane for doing that. The people who think I'm insane are insane. Like I said earlier: It's not because I think I can conquer cat-death, or because I think this is a sensible thing to do with the meager amount of money I make. It's because I'm human, and this life is largely a story I tell myself in order to feel better about the things I don't understand, and if I want to donate fifty useless green pieces of paper a month to the delusion that I have some control over the wellbeing of my friends, who are really just specks in the universe anyway, then that's exactly what I'm going to do. I know I'm going to be a crazy old cat lady one day, so call it the first step to accepting my destiny.
I'm really just posting this because my family thinks this is the stupidest idea ever, and for some reason it's making me Think About My Existence and be emo and I feel like I'm going crazy. No thanks to YOU, Neon Genesis Evangelion! (Just kidding. It is tasty and people should watch it.)