The Cat Returns

Yesterday morning, when I went to prepare breakfast, there was no sign of the cat that had been meowing at my window. There were plenty of rabbits in sight on the lawn, so I figured the feline had gone, for they would not be out cavorting in plain sight with a predator around.

It was cloudy most of the morning. In the afternoon, I went for my usual walk. I saw a rabbit by the fence.

I noticed hickory nuts maturing.

In the pasture, I admired the smooth sumac.

Then I saw a deer in the distance.

I wanted to get closer for a better view, but as soon as it spotted me, the deer ran away.

 In the late afternoon it rained, and Bow reacted with his usual display, answering every thunderclap with a vocalization.

I have long since given up asking Bow why he does this. Other chimpanzees do it, too. It's instinctive. There may be variations in their display, but they will display at the rain, and they don't know why. It's the same thing with humans. If you ask a human why he does something that is hard-wired, he won't be able to give you an articulate, intelligent answer, either. It used to drive me crazy when people could not explain themselves, and one of the things I hoped talking to a chimpanzee would help me with is clearing up some of those misunderstandings. But it turned out that Bow is not more capable of introspection than most of the humans I know.  Living with him has made me more tolerant of my own kind.

All of us have things we do that we can't help doing, and just because we come with those pre-wired behaviors, it does not mean that we don't have other actions that we perform consciously and by choice, things that we are capable of explaining to others. The difficulty, sometimes, is in determining what it is that someone else can't help doing, so that we don't waste time trying to change the unchangeable.  We have to learn not to say: "You're so smart. Why can't you just stop doing X." If X is hard-wired, there is no point even trying.

Everyone would benefit greatly from living with a chimpanzee twenty-four hours a day. There is so much to learn about our own nature from having to put up with theirs. And their generosity of spirit, when we don't judge them, more than makes up for a little inconvenience.

After the rain display was over, when it was time for dinner, Bow was perfectly capable of telling me what he wanted to eat by spelling out the words. The food calls when he saw the food coming were not for me, or for himself. They were pre-wired to give away the fact that there is food to any chimp within earshot, whether Bow wants to share or not.  But there were no chimps within earshot, only deer and rabbits and stray cats.

When dealing with humans, too, it is helpful to mute out the language they use if you want to rely on their tells. The articulated, spelled-out language performs one function, and the body language and unintentional vocalizations quite another.

In the evening, long after I had put Bow to bed, as I was tidying things up for the last time in the kitchen before turning out the lights, the cat returned. It appeared at the kitchen window. My daughter went out and got this picture of it.

Is the cat here to stay? Or is it just passing through? Only time will tell.

Bow in Sunshine and in Rain

So what was Bow doing yesterday, while I was having all those encounters with rabbits and a turtle? In the early morning, after breakfast, he was sleepy.

Later, there was a period of sunshine, and Bow took advantage of this time to enjoy the outer pen.

 While there was sunshine he was happy. He lounged about and made happy faces.

There had been rain the night before, so the bench was not entirely dry, but Bow enjoyed perching on the edge and soaking in the sunshine.

Eventually he assumed his favorite position, lying on the top rim of the bench.

And there he stayed for a good long time, being perfectly content and happy and at peace.

And then, in due course, the weather changed. It started raining, softly at first and then in torrents. Bow asked to go back inside. And there in the dimness of the inner pen during a storm when the clouds seem to put out the sun, Bow was not-so-happy.

Now, I bet you that some people, seeing this video of Bow being not-so-happy will try to post some sort of comment like "He needs to be free. Get him out of that cage. Let him roam free." But Bow is not unhappy because he's in a cage. He's unhappy because it is raining.

I have seen footage of chimpanzees in the wild, sitting out in the rain, getting soaked and looking miserable. Sometimes they display against the rain, and observers call it a rain dance. But their mood and behavior is very much tied to the natural world, and they get sad or depressed or upset by things they don't like and which are outside their control. Not unlike us.

I think that's perfectly healthy. I worry about people who always act happy, no matter what is going on. They can't really be happy all the time, and putting on the fake act or brainwashing themselves into accepting the things they can't change must be eating at the lining of their stomach. We have feelings for a reason. Going against our natural feelings can't be good.

Today I saw one of those be-happy memes. It said: "Happiness is not about always getting what you want. It is about being grateful for what you have." Nonsense! Happiness is about being able to act freely to express your true feelings regardless of how it looks to anyone else.

Sometimes we get what we want. Sometimes we don't. When we are free and unburdened by other people's expectations, we act happy when we get what we want and sad when we don't. And life goes on! Very soon a happy moment can emerge from a sad one, as the sun comes out from behind that cloud. But how would you even recognize it, if you were drugging yourself not to notice the world around you?

If you think these ideas make sense, then you might be interested in my old novel, Vacuum County.