I do not like animals. I hate the idea of cruelty to animals, but I don’t like pets. I have never had a pet in my own capacity. But I have had five long-term partners, including my wife, and they have all had pet cats. I have known 17 cats.
A question that has vexed me for a long time is why human beings voluntarily ally themselves with a creature whose life expectancy is about 12 to 20 years.
That gives you just the amount of time to forget what life was like before you knew the creature, when they die, leaving you in a state of bereavement.
Bereavement, as far as it goes, is fine, but then you embark on the same thing again, and again, and again.
My lack of understanding for dog and cat owners has recently reduced. I realised that I had been doing the same thing, since quite a young age.
But the lifespans I had been counting out were not those of cats and dogs: they were football players, cricketers, and rugby league players.
This divides your life into eras. Bremner. Batty. Klich. You may not regard them all with the same affection, but they are parts of your life. They all matter. They retire through injury. They grow old. Some of them die. Some are bursting with vitality, or yet to produce their best.
I used to think it was a folly: a mindless accentuation of mortality. I am now inclined to the view that it helps to come to terms with mortality.
iamhyperlexic 