Easy

This is an old photo taken five or six years ago, when I would have used the staid and formal word, photograph, instead. But that’s here and there in this more stressful existence now.

By this time that kitten has grown up in another home, and I hope it is still playing and jumping and always filled with food. And love, lots of it.

I often wonder why we people, if we truly are endowed with higher intelligence, managed to end up like this — daily scrounging for lucre to buy food, clothing, for rent money, for the bare necessities of life. Even if we earn more to grow past the bare bones of living, the struggle does not abate. It intensifies to meet the corresponding growth: Better food and clothes, this time with accessories like an expensive watch to adorn the wrist, the latest iPhone, and a bigger house to accommodate the more strenuous life filled with invitations and events, and cars to take you to those events, and a driver to drive you to your destination, if you’re not vacationing abroad.

My mind always goes back to the kittens. I have seen them fit their little bodies in small plastic bowls or paper bags or jump into boxes of all shapes. They are jealous little creatures, I notice. Pat one and the others will flock to you to get their share. You hand a food bowl to one, and there’s a scramble for the food bowls, while a few minutes ago everyone is ignoring food and just busy tumbling books down the bookshelf. Those below take a bite on the books, testing whether a Vonnegut tastes better than a Didion. 

I mean, their mind do not extend beyond food, play, caress, sleep. No wishing to upgrade a Seiko to a Rolex Datejust, a Mercedes to a BMW to a Rolls, a Malang to a Picasso, upgrade upgrade upgrade! I’m sure no one thinks of a better mausoleum than what others have. Or are there a few out there? A few who have lost their lust for battle, who no longer care for status, tired of making money pour their way, even kicking the erstwhile routine of poring through new books or catalogs of collectibles. The colors run past the jaded eyes. The beauty of women fails to perk the heart. The world has turned stale. The universe might as well be so much ashes. Turn the light out. I’ll sleep with the cats buried under the tree in the garden. My treasure is rest.