The Wisdom Teachings of My Cat

Like many of you, I talk to my cat every day.

Like a much smaller number of you, I hear my cat talking back.

Our conversations are usually of the mundane, everyday sort, with him saying stuff like: “How ya doing? Yeah, whatever, I gotta go take a nap,” “What do ya mean I can’t claw this big fluffy thing that you sit on every day?” and “Hey, feed me, ya bastard!”

There are times, though, when our conversations and interactions are delightfully deep. Sometimes he is the sage one who bestows upon me his own brand of feline wisdom.

Like the time when, after reading some rather obtuse meditation instructions, I was pondering the differences between insight, mindfulness, and wisdom.

My cat was sprawled on my desk like he owned the place (because, of course, he does), and he looked me square in the eyes, and I could almost hear him sigh a bit and then say, before nodding back to sleep:

“Insight is realizing that when you fall, you will always land on your four paws.

Mindfulness is remembering, while you are falling (and flailing uncontrollably), that you will eventually land on your four paws.

Wisdom is avoiding falling from something higher than what your nine lives can handle when you hit the ground.”

However, sometimes the very best nuggets of cat wisdom come to me vicariously, when I am watching him learn or experience something brand new.

Like the profound life lesson that he learned from a raggedy alley cat.

Let me explain…

My cat (named Og — which means “young” in Irish) was an indoor cat until we moved to a new house with a lovely backyard. It had grass, trees, flowers, squirrels, birds, butterflies, bugs…all kinds of new, amazing, wonderful things that he’d never experienced before.

And it was all bounded by a tall wooden fence.

We let Og run free in the backyard, and he loved it. So many fascinating things to explore, to see, and to chase. And it was all his.

Eventually, though, he would spend time looking above and beyond the boundaries of the yard. Above and beyond the wooden fence. He would gaze at the trees beyond, and the parrots that squawked in those trees, and the hawks that soared in the clouds high above.

But he stayed in his yard, within the bounds of the fence. Because, well…fence.

Then, one day, a raggedy alley cat appeared in Og’s yard.

This cat was scraggly and rough, with an insolent, sauntering walk and a glare of disrespect in his eye. And right below his nose was a prominent, rectangular dark patch of fur. So, yeah, he looked like that Nazi dictator whose name I won’t type here.

Anyway, there I am sitting in the backyard with Og sitting beside me, and right into the yard walks that scraggly alley cat. Right into Og’s yard.

Og wasn’t having any of it, and he hissed and spat his objections at the intrusion of that mangy interloper. He stood his ground like a trooper.

I do love my Og. But he was still an indoor cat at heart, and, honestly, that other cat wasn’t impressed.

So, after Og had done his best, I stood up and hissed a bit myself.

I guess that was enough. The other cat turned around, climbed to the top of the fence, hissed a final sarcastic insult, and vanished on the other side.

Og stared at the fence.

Then he looked at me.

Then he looked back at the fence.

Then back at me.

“What the hell just happened?” Og said.

“That other cat just climbed the fence,” I said.

Og looked at the fence again, then back at me.

“He can do that?” Og asked.

“Of course,” I said. “He’s a cat. He has claws. He can climb any fence he wants.”

Og looked at me, this time very deeply, and I swear I could see the thoughts churning away in his adorable little brain:

“Wait, I’m a cat! I have claws! Does that mean…can it possibly mean….?”

Og looked at the fence again…

It wasn’t long after that that I looked in the backyard and saw Og proudly walking along the top of the fence.

Don’t get me wrong, he still loved our yard. His yard. But there were now so many other yards to explore, and he explored them all.

He became fast friends with our next-door neighbors, who I suspect fed him at least as well (and as often) as we did. He met and crushed hard on the sexy, slinky black kitty two houses down the street. And he finally got the chance to climb those luscious trees that he’d been gazing at beyond the wooden fence of our yard.

Og learned a lot that day. But so did I.

The example of a scraggly alley cat showed Og that he was born with all that he needed to overcome the boundaries that seemed to limit the scope of his world.

And Og’s insight (and the joy he gained from it), helped me dare to explore and test the fences in my world that I had always assumed were too high to climb.

P.S. This is a mostly true story. Except for the part about hearing my cat’s voice…that’s fiction. Yeah, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.