In my childhood – as strange as it might be, there was a time when I was a child – I was surrounded by cats. Capricious, emotionally detached and impossible to tame, the cats can be observed and understood, but not socialized. For instance, there is a moment when the cats are adorable and dependent: when they are kittens. When they are little they are vulnerable, so they seek warmth and company. Then, they change; they become distant and wild and weird. And that moment can actually be witnessed.

It’s when they are weaned.

No, it’s not when they are no longer receiving milk; it’s when they are brutally left to look after themselves.

It’s when they’re abandoned.

By their mother.

You can normally hear this, as the kittens cry for a couple of days. They are completely able to hunt and feed themselves, but they still seek their mother’s presence, the emotional bond, the familiar… the family. After a while – for cats it’s a matter of days – they resign themselves. They give up. They lose hope. They are forced to accept that life is no longer the same.

And they stop crying.

When you see a kitten that has stopped crying, you will see a change in its eyes, in the way it looks at you. It’s no longer trusting you. It knows that you too can abandon it – after all, its own mother did it… It is no longer a kitten but a cat. A strange cold-hearted being, with its typical self-reliant, self-sufficient, self-contained attitude, who is no longer going to beg for your kindness or affection, who is only going to be cynically available for caressing while waiting food and a shelter in return. And – as many people have noticed already – it will often be visible that hate directed at you, others and life in general, as if some sort of injustice is constantly still being made. Yes, cats might be full of resentments. Cats want to kill you. You and the rest of the world. And they remain loyal only to a resourceful place or territory, but never to a person – or any other living being -, no matter how loving that person or being might be.

Cats are difficult; they need to be understood. And loved as they are, with the little they can give, by similarly-minded people. Or by people who do not ask for too much. By people who are only content that they, the cats, simply exist in the shared space, without too much emotional display… or involvement.

The piercing eyes of a cat tell a story; a story of loss and a story of newly-found strength to go on with life. Their attitude also tells a story of wisdom. But it is not that warm, accepting and inclusive wisdom of the dog. No. It’s a traumatic wisdom. It’s the traumatic wisdom of a being who keeps in its soul the anger of being betrayed and abandoned. It’s the traumatic wisdom of a being who knows that once you lost faith and trust, you can lose them again, as there are no guarantees and life is unfair.

Cats are truly cold.

Yet, they’re going to do the same, if they become mothers. They will transmit the same wisdom to their kittens, by making them live the abandonment and betrayal… when the time is due. It is a compulsion to do the same, so that the story of evil and evil-making can continue to the next generation.

This means, after all, to be a cat.