A Cat’s-eye View on Life: What a Cat Might Teach You on the Art Of living
They know more than they let on.
August 8th was World Cat Day, and I had no idea. Funny enough, I’d spent all afternoon taking photos of cats.
I found the cat in the image above chilling in an old Land Rover at a police station. I approached her slowly, careful not to spook her from her regal pose. I primed my shot and adjusted the focus.
But as I zoomed in on her face, I was stricken by how intelligent her eyes seemed. Soulful. Human. At that moment, looking into her eyes through the viewfinder of my camera, all I could think was:
“What does she see?”
It occurred to me then that just as I was observing her, appreciating her presence, and having thoughts about her, she was watching me too. Perhaps even harboring her own opinions of me? If anything, those eyes seemed arrogant, like I was just another big mouse whose sole duty was to bring her yummy treats.
To her, I was merely another animal.
I took the shot.
Immediately after, a police officer interrupted my train of thought to question me. Turns out it’s illegal to take photos in police stations. I looked the officer straight in the eye and said:
“Sir, this cat just stole my breath away. Arrest her instead.”
The officer stared back at me, a little confused but mostly amused.
“Wow. Now I’m definitely arresting you. That joke just caused a drought somewhere,” he said, chuckling.
I found this little kitten locked up in the storeroom of a shop close to home. I’d gone to buy a Coke, and I could hear her cries, piercing and desperate. I asked the shopkeeper if I could see her.
That sorrowful look greeted me as I walked into the small dark room. The rope around her neck was tied fast to a wooden post. It was old and frayed and all too real. It was the captive kitten’s entire existence.
I took the photo.
The kitten was well-fed and physically healthy, and I spotted a small empty feeding bowl nearby. She got incredibly excited the closer I got to her, and she struggled against her constraints to come to me.
The kitten immediately warmed up to my petting. She was desperate for affection, and I spent the next 15 minutes playing with her, with only my flashlight for lighting. A few minutes of love and affection did wonders for the kitten. Something I believe the next photo captured.
Upon questioning her, the shopkeeper told me the kitten was there to catch mice. And if the kitten wasn’t tied to the post, she’d run away, and the mice problem would return, therefore affecting her business.
I understood the shopkeeper’s plight, but I also felt that keeping the kitten in a dark room all day long was torture and the reason why the kitten would want to escape in the first place. I expressed this opinion.
The ensuing conversation with the shopkeeper revealed that we saw the kitten differently. I saw her as a pet, a creature in need of affection. To the shopkeeper, the kitten was a pest control method—an indispensable asset to her business. So simply expressing my opinion wouldn’t change her mind. I told her I would research other humane pest control methods she could readily use.
As I left, I bought the kitten a packet of milk, but her soft purrs and solemn look were hard to bear.
I’ll check on the little one often as I work on a solution.
That incident was sobering on many levels. That kitten’s sole reason for existence was catching mice. And as a result, her environment had been structured to optimize her for that one job, all other needs completely ignored.
It’s an apt metaphor for society today. We often overidentify with our jobs, our social classes. We tie our worth to money and material objects in unhealthy ways, and we don’t even see the system, the subliminal messaging all around us, working to keep things this way.
And we constantly disregard our well-being in our tendency to be social perfectionists.
If you ever had a sneaky suspicion that your cat was experimenting on you at night after you went to sleep, then there’s a slightly more than half chance you were right.
I took this photo a few days ago — proof that aliens exist and they live among us. Only they aren’t Skrulls. They are adorable and fluffy, and they came in tiny flying saucers and sailed straight into our hearts. And, of course, it had to be cats. Which other species is as shifty and sneaky while still being so ridiculously adorable?
At first, I didn’t know why this beautiful cat’s eyes were glowing green in my photos. But I assumed it was similar to what happens with red eyes in humans — the light bounces off the back of our retinas when we take photos with the flash on. The light reflects red because of the blood vessels in our eyes. Some quick research revealed that I was right.
But why were the cat’s eyes green rather than red?
Turns out cats have a layer of reflective cells in their eyes called tapetum lucidum, which is a Harry Potter spell meaning ‘Shining Layer.’ So when my flash went off, the light bounced off this shiny layer of cells, causing the green, out-of-this-world look.
It’s also because cats are the secret masters of this world. Why else would there be an International Cat Day?
Taking the photo from a different purr-spective produced some exciting results. We went from alien eyes to puss-in-boots cute attack eyes in seconds, and I loved it.
Often, a slight shift in perspective can make a whole lot of difference in life and in photography.
All these photos inspire me to think more about what life as a cat — as a nonhuman being — is like. Are they capable of thought beyond instinct? Of rich inner lives? Or is that my own love of fantasy and personification talking?
And what do they think of us?
I’ll explore that thought in a separate article, one more focused on understanding the internal lives of animals and humanity’s place in nature.
International Cat Day was all about raising awareness on how we can better care for our feline friends. And it was also a reminder that we share space with other beings. We tend to forget that.
I don’t know when the cats will drop their mask of congeniality and subjugate the human race. But when they do, I just hope my cat master will be thoughtful enough to spend 5 minutes of their day playing with me.
DISCLAIMER: I do not know the gender of any of the cats mentioned here. I am conditioned to see all cats as female and all dogs as male until proven otherwise. Please don’t ask me why.
