Once a thing is set to happen, all you can do is hope it won't. Or will - depending. As long as you live, there's always something waiting, and even if it's bad, and you know it's bad, what can you do? You can't stop living.
- In Cold Blood, Truman Capote
Domenico is a domestic short-haired ginger cat, of about four years of age. He has grey-green and copper eyes, weighs about four-and-a-half kilograms, enjoys his dry food more than his wets, enjoys scratching the nice office chair more than his cardboard wave, and enjoys sniffling fresh coffee more than anything else in the morning. Domenico is a cat, and that means certain things beyond the facts noted earlier. To have a cat as a pet is to accept a number of assumptions, both about the cat in question and about the relationship between the cat and their chosen family, because as we all know, it's the cat that picks its owner, not the other way around. A cat, is, by definition, a ridiculous creature, whose sense of dignity and self-importance is utterly inverse of the adorableness of their absurd little body. A cat is fiercely independent when they choose to be, but utterly cloying and subservient when they want something. Anyone who's opened a bag of crisps around a cat knows the truth of this statement. A cat is also dependent on their masters, for lodging, healthcare, food, comfort, and to be respected. A cat's dependence on humans arises because a domestic cat cannot navigate or engage with the systems necessary for their own survival beyond a few very immediate needs - street cats can scrounge for scraps and drink stale water, but a street cat cannot access medical care, shelter, or ongoing security without some kind of human generosity.
To care for a cat is to accept its indifference until its need develops sincerity. To own a cat is to care for a creature that is independent until its dependence necessitates its obsequiousness. To care for a cat is to be the emperor of an obstinate peasantry of that critter. As Heinlein said, how we behave toward cats here below determines our status in heaven. To care for animals is to give without expecting anything in return because an animal cannot understand motive or reciprocal obligations and other human inventions.
A Cat's Conception of Self
Domenico likes it when he is scratched under his chin. Cats like this because cats' chins and cheeks have scent glands that they use to mark their environments. If you've ever had a cat rub up against you and noozle their little face into your trouserlegs or your hands, it's because that cat is marking you with their scent, and marking you as their human. Chin scratches and marking are a way for cats to connect and build trust with their humans. It's an intimate practice, and establishes a relationship between the cat, its person, and its environment. A cat's relationship with their family and their environment are spatial, familial, but also behavioural. Scent marking lets a cat define their territory and their people, keeping unwanted individuals away, and marking what is familiar; cats need familiarity. This familiarity drives a cat's socialisation with humans but also supports their health - an agitated cat will have changed diet, grooming behaviour, and will behave in a manner that realises that stress, sometimes creating a feedback loop of issues that compound and escalate. An agitated cat can overgroom, go off their food, scratch at their surroundings, hide away, or attack someone trying to care for it.
In that way, they're a bit like humans.
Like cats, humans also require familiarity - familiarity of environment, routine, and comfort. Changing these things upsets our sense of ourselves, just like moving a cat's water bowl or litter box. A human's active experience of their body isn't something that's actively perceived - we know what we can do and what we can't do, but when we can't do something that we used to be able to, that is an antecedent driver of behaviours. A person experiencing stress, not even pain may withdraw from activity, and if that activity is important to them, they may become more stressed, creating a feedback loop of issues that compound and escalate. If that activity is work, they may become more stressed. If a person is experiencing discomfort for the first time, then they need to navigate that discomfort and its effect on their selves and day-to-day life, and it's very rare that someone will be there for that upset human to scratch their chin and give them a hug. Believe me, I've tried. Humans may not mark their environments with scent glands from their cheeks, chins, or their backsides (understandably,) but the human environment isn't merely spatial. A human's conception of self is more complex than a cat's because we have more complicated systems to navigate and those systems, like work, family, play, and obligation, recontextualise the discomfort we're experiencing because we have to use those systems for evaluation, and that evaluation can make the perceived effect of that discomfort more acute psychologically without affecting it physically. A cat doesn't worry about work, blessedly. A cat doesn't worry about mortgage payments, gloriously. A cat worries about cattish things, because that's a cat's conception of themself, and that's fine.
However, when a cat experiences pain, it's very rarely fine.
A Cat's Conception of Pain
Domenico does not like it when I brush his teeth. This is because I have to use heavy rosecutting gloves to guard my delicate, effeminate fingers and soft hands from his gnashing teeth and his scratching claws, which are bared against me when I use a loaded toothbrush on his gums and his tongue. The entire episode of brushing Dom's teeth is a nightly ordeal that ends as quickly as it starts - I cajole, he caterwauls, I brush, he bristles, and then it's done. Mercifully. I subject Domenico to this nightly torment because he can't brush his teeth. Bro doesn't have opposable thumbs. Domenico also doesn't understand concepts like tooth decay, gum disease, or gingivitis. Humans understand that teeth are luxury bones projecting out of your skull that you need to take care of unless you want to fund your Dentist's next electric Porsche. Humans understand that regular brushing, flossing, mouthwashing, and rinsing are important to preserve oral health. Cats don't understand this. Cats don't understand things like oral hygiene, safe lifting, ergonomic practices, or the importance of regular exercise and a balanced diet. Cats behave in line with their instincts, which are informed by their needs - they are Id driven creatures. When a cat is in pain, let's say from a sore tooth, they will withdraw from their regular activities and self-care and start behaving in a way that is a bit scary. The immediacy of their needs runs up against the reality of their pain - a cat with tooth pain will drool, paw at its mouth, vomit its food, and stress and fret incessantly. However, those are only the visible symptoms. Cats will not show signs of oral discomfort until it is too late. Because the pain associated with dental problems comes on slowly over time, they simply learn to live with it, until they cannot.
In that way, they're a bit like humans.
In practice, the Biopsychosocial model is used to explore a person's experience of pain or distress. Pain is a sensation that has measurable, biological and empirical elements whose effect is magnified, diminished, or changed when it's evaluated in the context of a person's individual and social life. In clinic, these contextual factors are psychosocial considerations, and encompass beliefs, appraisals, and judgements, as well as emotional responses and pain behaviours. Contemporary research suggests that dealing with pain beliefs and behaviours is the key to supporting successful and sustained resolution of discomfort. Pain is a front-of-brain experience. It's hard to get away from it. Pain isn't something a person can take off or park on the side of the road. Pain is in a person. That person is in pain. It's something that inhabits and surrounds a person. Pain can be antecedent to fear, and fear can be antecedent to pain, creating a symptomatic feedback self-amplifying loop that gets harder and harder to ignore and overcome, like microphone feedback. People learn to live with their pain, until they cannot. The way in which people learn to live with their pain depends on their belief and their understanding: their belief and understanding about what that pain means, their belief and understanding of their wellness, and their belief and understanding about the impact of their pain. The impact of pain is dictated by its context - by an ecosystem of environmental, individual and occupational factors that are as real and as affecting as the sensation of pain itself, but which can be so far removed from front-of-brain lived experience as to be insubstantial. A layperson doesn't understand something like a nociplastic cycle, periosteal inflammation, the difference between a protrusion or an extrusion, how to change pain beliefs, how to interpret discomfort, or how to scale a return to work trajectory. The ecosystem of background factors is shrouded ground to navigate, like learning how to sail in a storm, learning how to fight in a fight, and finding familiarity in unfamiliar territory. All ships are small in the ocean, and all men are small in life. Pain is a sensation of discomfort whose cutting edge is sharpened by worry, conjecture, and belief - a sensation which can be made worse by attempts to navigate it and through questions like, is this the beginning of something worse, is this happening because someone did something wrong?
Cats are blessed that they can't ask those questions and make things worse for themselves. The human need to know more can just as easily paint itself into a corner, or precede its own downfall.
A Cat's Conception of Death
Domenico does not like it when I go to work. The first thing he does when he seems me put on my boots is to gnaw insistently on my ankles until I shoo him off. Then, where biting me has failed, he'll swan around my shins and noodle his head into my trouserlegs. Maybe he'll pounce on me. He'll pace incessantly and then guard the door - but as always happens, he will slouch off and glare at me. He doesn't understand that by working, I make sure that he has shelter, food, water, money for healthcare, money for treats, and a buffer in case I'm sick. Domenico has immediate needs - he may feel hungry, thirsty, itchy, too warm or too cold, in need of ablutive relief, or in pain. Domenico doesn't understand how immediate needs have antecedent criteria - how cat food needs money to purchase, how I can only keep him housed because I have a place to live, and how I can only have him at all because I own my apartment so I don't need to negotiate with a landlord to have him live with me. Domenico doesn't understand that I make decisions with respect to his welfare because his welfare is my responsibility. Domenico's life is my responsibility, and he doesn't understand that. Domenico is biologically and psychologically incapable of understanding that his life and his wellbeing are entirely in my hands, and if I don't engage with that he will die. A cat doesn't understand what death is. A cat doesn't understand what health is. A cat doesn't understand that their life exists in the space its owner creates for it, and that space needs to be created out of excesses of time, emotion, and resources which themselves rely on systemic antecedents that ensure security and comfort. That's what I mean when I say that a cat is absurd. A cat has such a high sense of its own importance but it depends entirely on the care of its owner to recognise that dignity and embrace it. All animals have rights, to dignity, to safety, and the right to have a purpose, but the extent to which those rights are upheld depends on who controls the systems which engage with those rights.
In that way, they're a bit like humans.
Humans have a wider awareness of environmental, occupational, and lifestyle factors that can affect their health, but this awareness is still abstract. Things like workplace health, community health, and the health of the individual are driven by contextual and impersonal factors - the availability and accessibility of healthcare, the accessibility of information and services, workplace health and safety, the availability of public transport, comfortable lodgings, good quality food, all of these things are necessary but they're not small and we can't affect them, at least not directly. Humans, as citizens, workers, and participants in communities rely on those spaces, communities, and organisations to make decisions that support their health, wellbeing, fullness of life, and participation in those systems. The systems in which we exist and at whose discretion we live our lives comfortably - our political systems that define our rights, our economic systems that determine our access to financial resources, our professional systems that accredit, acknowledge, and allow us to apply our accreditations, exert forces on our lives as real as heat or pressure but which defy our ability to measure. Put a gram of political economy on a scale. Fill up a beaker with justice. We as participants in communities are able to participate in those communities because space has been made for us, either as an explicit outcome of the well-running of those communities or because there is a sufficient excess that we can be comfortable and move from survival to thriving. Societies put space between their desires and our demise, and we fill up that space with art, with comfort, and with cats. People navigate their lives independently, individually, until the time comes for us to appeal to systems whose motives and motivations are as inscrutable to us as I am to my cat, and we appeal to their mercy as best we can, lest we be destroyed. Humans, unlike cats, are aware of their mortality, their finitude, and the inarguability of their end. Maybe that's why we spend our time and our excess striving to make meaning from the blank canvas of our lives.
In that way, cats and humans are different. Humans must make their meaning, while cats have their meaning preinstalled.
Cats are very strange creatures, almost as strange as humans. All animals, bipedal and otherwise, navigate systems whose antecedents and behaviours are invisible both as a consequence of their incorporeality and because of their distance from what is real. Pain is real. Hunger is real. Cold is real. The confluence of factors leading to a situation in which a person or a cat may be cold, hungry, and in pain may all be real individually, but in combination and over time they become elevated to the abstract. They no longer become real, or if they are real, they are as real as the relationship between Domenico and the supermarket that sells his food, as real as the relationship between me and the law that dictates my right to live and to the dignities upon which I base my life.
The systems which dictate how humans and cats progress through the world are so far removed from the practical realities they dictate as to be abstract and magical. However, like those who actually navigate those systems, Domenico is very real. He is small, he is warm, he makes a noise like a coffee percolator when you scratch under his chin, and all the love we have for him will live on longer than he does, and that will be his memory.
That fact, like Domenico, is as real as the love I have for him, and I love him very much.
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