Our cat got into a scuffle about a month ago. He’s a relatively big, strapping fellow who’s fond of getting into scraps with feral cats in the neighbourhood, and he is completely rubbish at it.
I didn’t see the fight, but I could tell our cat got the worst of it again, judging by the way he was shrivelled in spirit.
He also had a cut close to his right ear. Nothing ghastly, but it made the right side of his face swell up and any time I approached him to see the extent of his injury, he growled the way cats do before claws and teeth come out.
This is a cat that mostly stays in the house and if you know anything about anything, broken skin and growling when it comes to animals should make you get concerned about rabies. So onto Google I went in search of injury-cat-growl-aggression. To my relief, it wasn’t rabies. I did discover something interesting, though.
Apparently when cats are injured or sick, they become aggressive because, get this, they think the person who is approaching, as in the approach itself, is the cause of their pain and suffering. You see, cats are not aware that the pain is emanating from their own bodies. They lack self-awareness, which is the ability to recognise oneself as an individual, separate from the environment and other individuals.
Humans don’t have this problem because we’re self-aware, except when it comes to our minds.
There is this guy I know. I run into him often and every time I do, he’s moody and depressed. The reason is he believes that every single person he has ever met is doing better in life than he is financially speaking.
The guy is in his early 30s, he has a good job, no wife, no kids depending on him, and no extended family requiring financial assistance. But in his mind, the thoughts swirling therein are that his life is the pits, despite all evidence to the contrary.
‘The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven’ – John Milton.
Few people are aware of this — that the mind is its own place, almost separate from you. Like the moody, depressed young man, many people lack the awareness that the thoughts in our minds are just thoughts, fantasies, stories, imaginings. They’re not real unless you hold onto them, then they become so.
‘What you think you become’ – Buddha
The science behind Buddha’s words is the thought patterns you create change the way your brain works. If you tend to wallow in frustration and misery, your brain will rewire itself to see everything in that light.
If you’re always thinking angry thoughts, you’ll find reasons to be angry. If your thoughts are hateful, you’ll find reasons to hate. And if you’re always thinking of a yellow car, you’ll see yellow cars everywhere. Your mind, if you let it, will make you a frustrated, miserable, angry, hateful, yellow car-seeing individual, growling at the outside world when it’s all coming from you.
Learn to watch your mind. Become aware of the thoughts, fantasies, stories and imaginings therein as though it was something other, separate from you.
Watch what you think.
