Listening is a two-way form of communication. I am trying to learn how to listen better and my cats are teaching me a lot. I am not sure if I am projecting my imagination into my cats, but I think maybe they like me. I’m not entirely certain as to whether they like me or not, but I am learning how to listen to them. In addition to them saying, “meow” when they are hungry or want attention or are about to spit up a hairball. Cats, by the way, do not say “meow” and honestly, I don’t really understand how they ever came to say “meow” in the first place. I think there isn’t really a written language that conveys cat communication. So let’s start by trying to deconstruct cat language and express it in something comprehensible to human beings. When a cat intonates, she begins her intonation with an ooh/oh sound. Her sounds is an opening and in the first trill/intonation of her vocal chord is what might be called a peak amplification. It is an expressive, monosyllabic utterance of desire that can best be qualified as a question.
Now I like that cats like to ask questions because I like to ask questions too. I like to ask questions like, “why did human beings invent fictional deities” and “what would the world look like if we abandoned the illusion of private property” and “why does the Fermi paradox seem so troubling in terms of its implications for intelligent life in the universe.” I think honestly that cats are mostly asking the same kinds of questions. They are asking the same kinds of questions like, “why am I here in this house with you” and “why won’t you open the door and let me go” as well as “when will you feed me” and of course the ever-present “pet me now.” My sense is that most cat communication comes in two phases, phase one is a question, which has an upward sloping trill that expresses a question. Usually, the question is “why aren’t you spending more time paying attention to me, me?!” then there is a more adamant expression which could be described less as a question and more as an exclamation and that means, “feed me, pet me, pay attention to me, clean up my litter box, let me out, let me in, move whatever is in your lap at this moment. stop paying attention to those other cats. cats!” and that sound is more like an aaayyaaaeeeaaaooomeow!
I find that listening to cats is like listening to people. The truth is that most cat communication is nonverbal and it has taken me a generation of living with cats to even begin to understand it. Cats sit close to you when they want to sit in your lap. Cats are very much tribal and hierarchical. I have learned this by watching cats feed. The boy cats go first, and the first of the first is the alpha cat. Most of the fights within the cat community happen between the alpha cat and the want to be an alpha cat. What I find so entertaining in our cat tribe is that the alpha cat is not the strongest cat or the biggest cat, it is actually the cat who is best at forming social relationships within the cat hierarchy. He is the cat who is able to lick everyone’s heads and sniff everyone’s butts and be a mom to all the cats. He is the alpha cat and it is mostly because of his generosity, which is probably due to good cat parenting on the part of his human parents.
I don’t think I would do very well in a cat hierarchy. If I was a cat I would be the whiny cat who is sort of always at odds with the alpha cat. It is important to know yourself and I’m pretty sure I’m that cat. I’m not the cat who gets along with all the other cats and makes peace with them. I’m the cat who is always complaining about everything. If I was in the cat tribe I would be complaining about why don’t they let me outside, when am I going to get an education, when am I going to get some time to write, why is the pay here so lousy? I would also complain about the lack of democratic processes within the cat hierarchy and the lack of inclusiveness. Of course, since I would be a cat this would be interspersed with moments of licking my butt and coughing up hairballs as well as taking exorbitant naps. I wouldn’t be the best at giving myself a cat shower and I would absolutely despise the humans who were taking care of me. If I could I would jump on their back and meow until they liberated all the cats from their bondage.
Luckily for the other cats, I am not a cat because they would not like me. The nice thing about cats though is that once they have accepted you into the tribe you are always a member, even if there is a hierarchy you are still part of that special cat tribe that humans will never understand. When I look at my cats I see how much time they spend looking at each other, keeping account of where each cat is and the patience and care which they take when approaching one another. Cats are very generous and inclusive and they are always making sure to include the other cats in their cat communication. If there is a bird at the window they will let all the other cats know, if they hear a can of cat food opening up they meow very loudly so the other cats will know it is time for food. What impresses me the most though is the patience and care they take when feeding. Each cat watches out for the other cats and only eats so much before letting the other cats go next.
Some day I would like to spend a day as a cat, just so I can come to understand these miracles of nature better. My sister has explained to me that cats have had to greatly adapt their evolutionary behavior in order to live with humans. I just want to say that I appreciate that cats have made this evolutionary adaptation because cats are amazing. They actually care about us even though there is a running meme on the internet about the aloof cat who is indifferent to all human suffering, the truth is that cats really care about us as members of their tribe. They worry when we go away and they have so adapted to the bizarre rules that we impose on them that they are able to find some peace and comfort in the lives we have offered them. Their lives are longer living with us than they would be in the wild, they have fewer children but on the other hand, they are safe generally from predators. I’m afraid that living with humans has made cats neurotic, mostly an adaptive trait they have learned from living with humans.
All I can say is that cats are very special, they are an endless source of fascination and joy and I bless the day a cat decided to follow a tribe of people and eat food from their scrap pile. I hope that cats never evolve to the point where they understand and have the burdens of the world that we have. There is something about the joyfulness and in the moment awareness cats have that I admire and would like to learn from. Cats are present to what is immediate and when there is not a threat and when their basic needs are met they are mostly focused on doing activities they enjoy such as taking naps, taking naps, and taking naps.
