Mr Spock and the Cat Police

How overthinking the meaning of cat ownership may have made me sociopath, and other musings.

An email came from the landlord a few weeks ago that I've been wanting to tell you about. "Evidence" had been found of cats residing in the building, which had been traced, correctly, to me.

"I would like to bring to your attention that pets are not permitted in the flats due to the damage and possible infestations they can cause. The cat will need to be removed from the property and we will shortly conduct inspections to ensure this has taken place".

Oh. Shit.

Actually it's cats, plural. Two of them. Their names are Monk and Tiger, they are nine months old, and they look like this:

They are brother and sister, coming from an unreasonably large litter of eleven, and who I came by through a friend of friend. They needed a home. How could I resist? Look at them. Look at their widdle faces.

Not now, Mr Spock.

So the email was a bit of shock. It shouldn't​ have been, since I signed a tenancy agreement that included a clear "no pets" clause. I chose to ignore this, which brings you up-to-date.

It has been at the back of my mind for a while that Tiger and Monk and I might not to be able to live together happily ever after. As I said in a previous post they aren't totally compatible with my longer term plans; even with my short term experiments with indoor gardening, for that matter. So, after several attempts to find them a home, which have not been successful, they've gone back to where they came from.  They may be able to move on from there, but I had to have them out by this week, so that was that.  When I got home to my now cat-free flat I felt a little sad, and then I felt free again.  It was strange.  Perhaps I'm just a heartless bastard.

Spoiler alert. Occasionally, this blog will refer to Star Trek. Specifically, to its version of the future in which technology and a new understanding of their place in the universe has allowed for the human race to develop of a new globalised economic system, under a single world government, without war, starvation or want. It is a future where not only do "material needs no longer exist" but which money itself, the blood of our economy, has become obsolete. How exactly this all works is never fully explained in the series, a fact to which its writers make the occasional knowing self-reference, but for which they should not be unduly criticised. It's science fiction, after all, and they don't ever explain how their "transporters" (which teleport humans over long distances instantly) or "replicators" (which create food and other materials out of thin air just as quickly) work either: but then, being able to explain such fictional devices perfectly would be tantamount to actually inventing them, which of course has not happened. If you're a regular reader of this blog, you'll appreciate how this is relevant to my interests.

Ah, yes, Mr Spock. I'm sorry to have kept you waiting. Nice cat you've got there. Good segue.

Indeed. Spock was the original Star Trek's famously conflicted alien: half human, half "Vulcan". Humans are often characterised in Star Trek as emotional, impulsive, irrational - which of course they are - but these aspects of their nature are over-emphasised for dramatic reasons, and as a point of contrast between Vulcan nature, which is logical, dispassionate and as was drawn out more in later incarnations of the franchise, somewhat emotionally repressed. The climax of the Vulcan back story involves a time of "great awakening", in which a species on the brink of self-destruction manages to overcome its dark and violent impulses by embracing a philosophy of radical self-control and a logical, disinterested approach to decision-making, just in time to keep from annihilating themselves altogether, and go on to explore the galaxy, sharing their wisdom and technology with other species they deem worthy of their attention. Just as humans discover the means by which they might do the same (faster than light "warp speed" space travel) a passing Vulcan ship's curiosity is piqued, and so begins a long, fraught but fruitful relationship between the two species that is several centuries old by the time Mr Spock comes along. In the Star Trek timeline, incidentally, this occurs in the year 2063, which isn't really that long now.  Perhaps we'll make it; or perhaps not.  I wonder if a renewed emphasis on self-control and logic might be just the solution we need.  These are excessive and illogical times.  I need not remind you of who the most powerful person on the planet currently is.

We live in an every more overtly emotional world.  Just last week, the Prime Minister (of whom I am, needless to say, no fan) was criticised, not only for failing to engage with the community affected by the Grenfell Tower disaster on a personal level, as well she might be, but for not publicly crying enough with or for them.  As the Spectator put it, she is "too British for her own good".  A similar phenomenon occurred 20 years ago after the death of Princess Diana, when a similar line of attack was made on the Queen, who following this latest newsworthy tragedy was applauded for, unlike Theresa May, coming out and actually making physical contact with the plebs in person, just as fervently as she had been for not doing in 1997.  For some reason how our leaders are seen to be feeling, regardless of what they may or may not actually feel, is supposed to be extremely important.  Why?  A very difficult question.

Now this is coming from a man who has taken Prozac for the last 12 years, but I'm really not a very emotional person.  It isn't only that, like the Prime Minister, I might be too British for my own good - that I don't express my emotions as much as I might - so much as that I don't really feel very much at all.  I'm not exactly robotic, like Mrs May is said to be, though of course in private almost certainly isn't, but only on very rare occasions do I feel any emotion intensely enough that it needs to be expressed.  This may put me a little at odds with the times, in which is now platitudinous that to "open up" is intrinsically a good thing, that to be emotionally "repressed" is intrinsically unhealthy, that men should not be afraid of appearing "vulnerable" and so on, and so on.  I wonder though if the unspoken truth about individuals is that some feel a lot more than others.  For some, to be openly emotional is a source of strength; just as much, for others, it is a form of deception.  Why pretend to feel for the satisfaction of others, when behind a superficially emotional exterior, you may feel nothing at all?  Are emotional reactions to terrible things necessarily a good thing?  Should we be more like Theresa May?  Perish the thought.  Should we be more like Spock?  More complex questions.

Cats are really nice to have around.  Really nice.  Just stroking a cat can lower your blood pressure and cholesterol, relieve anxiety, and significantly decrease your chances of becoming unnecessarily dead.  Incredible, and perhaps no wonder that we "emotionally repressed" Brits have such high rates of cat ownership.  About the most monstrous thing a British person could do, except perhaps putting their sofa in the garden, would be to eat their cat.  A special level of contempt is reserved in the popular consciousness for the abusers of cats and dogs (although not, of course, for sheep, pigs or cows, the abuse of which we generally contract out).  Maybe I "should" feel sad, then, about having to give my cats away again.  But I don't.  I feel nothing about it, except lightly relieved.

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