The Curmudgeon

YOU'LL COME FOR THE CURSES. YOU'LL STAY FOR THE MUDGEONRY.

Sunday, April 10, 2005

Introduction to Felosophy

The existential thought of cats (felosophy) is by and large far too subtle for the human understanding, but it rests on an extremely simple premise. This is that the phenomenological world is divisible into three distinct types (categories), namely Cat, Not-Cat, and Food.

The first category is by far the most important. It incorporates all phenomena known specifically to be cats, including lynx, panthers, leopards, lions, tigers and all species of domestic feline including women. Whether all human beings can be included in this category is a matter of some debate, especially on rooftops in the middle of the night where all the most advanced felosophical discussions take place.

Most cats are prepared to recognise human beings as intelligent creatures, i.e. cats of some sort, albeit physically rather odd and intellectually somewhat retarded. Such recognition rests mainly on the fact that human beings invented central heating and can sometimes be trained to open tins at convenient intervals. However, many felosophers, particularly the outdoor school including lions, tigers, wildcats and so forth, consider these achievements to have been blown out of all proportion by the domestic school. The outdoor school of felosophers tends to feel that human beings should be relegated to the third category, Food. All in all, this whole debate is still extremely lively and fruitful, as can be heard between about three and four o'clock any morning of the week.

The second category, Not-Cat, includes all non-feline and/or inanimate objects which cannot be eaten, such as computers, washing machines, inexpensive clothing, dogs and the various other items of detritus with which even the best-trained human beings like to surround themselves. Again, there is some disagreement as to the boundaries of this category, given that almost anything can be eaten by a cat who is determined to try hard enough; not to mention the equal and opposite fact that many things which in theory are edible cannot possibly be eaten for the simple reason that a human being is determined to feed them to a cat. Pills are a good example, as is any brand of cat food which has previously been eaten on a day D and is then thoughtlessly purchased by a human being on a different day D1 in the complacent expectation that the cat will eat it again. This question has been tentatively resolved by the postulate that certain phenomena can traverse between categories, rather like a cat traversing between neighbourhood dinner bowls; but the matter is far from being categorically settled.

The third category, Food, includes all animate and inanimate objects which can be eaten, notably meat (whether tinned or laid out on the table from which a meddlesome human being may try to remove the enterprising felosopher), fish, bird, rodent, furball and possibly such tempting but elusive chewables as human fingers and toes. Very few felosophers disagree about the contents of this category, although now and then a small question can arise as to whether that which is Food for the cat who caught it may or may not be Food for a bigger cat instead.

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