My best friend seems unaware of the only thing that anyone talks about anymore. Coronavirus is not a thing to him. He appears to feel no fear and no trepidation. He has never worn a mask.
No, Tippy spends his days more concerned about things like the birds and the squirrels that he spots outside the window. He notices the trees in the wind, or the first pitter patters of a rainfall. He loves to nap. And, thankfully, he loves to spend time with me.
As a cat, Tippy does not spend inordinate hours scouring the news. He could really care less. He has his priorities. Aside from eating, pooping, sleeping, and tracking anything that moves, he values being close to me. He likes to sit with me while reading, lay on top of me asleep in bed, position himself in the middle of anything on which I am working. He follows me around.
I have a sneaking suspicion that he knows more than I do, than we all do.
For one thing, he has instincts, and he trusts them. To the letter.
He knows the difference between an actual, existential threat and mind games. Were a big dog to come into view, there is no doubt Tippy would make himself scarce.
That’s not to say that Tippy doesn’t pick up on vibes. He is, after all, my best friend. It’s clear, he ‘gets’ things. He can tell when I’m sad or scared or tense. He knows when I’m awake, staring into the dark. I don’t think he cares at all about what is going on that might affect my frame of mind, but I think he cares a lot about my frame of mind.
Every animal that has graced my life has been a teacher. They have shown me love and patience and humor and joy and tender compassion. Sometimes I have been witness to their fear, suffering, incomprehension, death. I have grown from every encounter – from my beloved cat friend to the cardinal singing in the tree or the snake slithering away from my approaching foot.
With our culture’s anthropocentric perspective, we suppose we know so much more than the other animals. Or the trees, for that matter. We’re all about our brains, and all that we’re able to accomplish with them.
While it is true that amazing and wonderful things have been born of the human brain, we don’t honor how little we really know. Nor do we own the many detrimental purposes to which we put those brains, on a grand scale. The other animals do not behave that way.
I suspect they are, in actuality, more highly evolved than humans. They are extremely observant and they understand the priorities.
Like Tippy, they pay attention to the fundamentals of life – food, water, air, sunshine, exercise, relaxation, play, shelter, relationships, tribe. They tend to all that without leaving an indecipherable and disproportionate path of destruction. Nor do they just muck around with their own or other species for gratuitous or ruinous ends.
They live in sync with life.
But as the almighty human species, look what we do to the animals. We pen many of them up for their entire shortened lives, use them, abuse them, kill them, eat them in incomprehensible numbers, all while wreaking destruction across the planet.
Maybe the fact that the other animals seem incapable of doing that to us isn’t evidence of their ignorance but in truth shows us how truly advanced they are.
I think during this pensive time it might be wise to ponder the idea that the other animals know more than we do. Maybe give some thoughtful consideration to how they walk their life paths.
My wise and wonderful best friend Tippy never touches on the news, but he reminds me daily about the important things of life and the elements of true health.
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