The inner life of cats

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What is an “inner life” and why do I think cats have one?

A “successful” inner life is defined by how well you deal with your emotions, your degree of self-awareness, and your sense of clarity about your values and life purpose.

Building An Inside-Out Life

Tristan loves Sade, but it is developing other tastes, as seen here with a Pink Floyd concert DVD

email: aboulkalem1998@gmail.com

rational beings

In the post Are cats the most rational of all beings?, I discuss how cats are good at making decisions out of logical self-interest. This suggests considerable clarity about their goals.

We can’t put human definitions on cat experiences, because cats have a narrower range of influences. A person can be moved by abstraction and nebulous concepts, conveyed in movies, speeches, pictures, books, or other media. Cats do not have much understanding of this way of conveying ideas.

Cats know what their instincts urge them to do, and what they have experienced themselves, and also what they have observed other cats doing. When they live with humans, dogs, and other beings, they also understand some of what these beings do, and insights into why.

My cats understood that dogs like treat time as much as they do, and that human treat time could turn into their treat time. This is an abstract concept they can generalize into others who are not of their species.

This is not instinctual reflex: this is higher level thinking.

emotional maintenance

In the post, Be the channel for their river, I explain how we can help our cats handle their emotions. Because of their partnership with humans, puzzling and upsetting things happen that cats cannot handle with their instincts.

A classic example is that of cats who are antagonistic with each other. In nature, they could simply avoid each other’s annoying presence. In our homes, they cannot do that. We have to manage their issues with each other so they have a solution to this problem.

Our homes require maintenance from people who are noisy and invasive, the store runs out of favorite flavors, we have to work late or take a trip. These are things our cats cannot understand, since their ancestral life didn’t have any such challenges.

We need to help our cats make sense of a world they did not make.

self-awareness

While cats are notoriously difficult to study in a laboratory environment, many people have shared stores, or even videos, of how their cats recognize it is “them” in a mirror, which is considered a key element of being self aware.

In the post, Cats and their sense of self, I explain ways in which cats can be said to have one. I have run across many of my cats pondering something, and then acting on whatever they had been mentally working on.

Look at how a cat’s “I meant to do that” response acknowledges how they look from outside of themselves. They are conscious of their dignity, and how others view them.

I think it’s biased when we create rules for selfhood that only acknowledge human expressions of the concept. Even worse is the dismissal of what should be compelling evidence that animals can manage some of this criteria.

One thing I find compelling is how many of my cats develop distinct, and consistent, musical tastes. My cat Lawrence loved the music of Coleman Hawkins. Saxophone music used in other genres did not move him. Reverend Jim will always appear when we play anything by Rush, while Tristan started with love of Sade and now has shown interest in early Genesis and Pink Floyd.

Having such individual tastes in human music shows a lot of individuation and personal expression on the part of these cats.

When I see my cats teaching the newbies the rules of the house, seeking out companions for enjoyable activities, and how they care for each other, I am impressed by their abilities. These are behaviors we humans have in common with them.

It is certainly enough to base a friendship on.

Since they live in a human world, they need human explanations.