They are often fluffy, generally cute, and always have whiskers. And for all the crass jokes aimed at diminishing their marvelous attributes, there is an iconic writer, artist, composer, musician, or other creative genius whose adoration of them is that which legends are made of.
They are cats.
From the tiniest kitten to the most formidable and striking of big cats—such as lions, tigers, leopards, panthers, and cheetahs—the feline spirit is both relatable to those in every walk of life and simultaneously enshrouded in at least a partial veil of mystery.
It has been said, particularly by those who don’t like cats, that they were never intended to become domesticated in the first place. Whereas dogs have won the label of “man’s best friend” throughout the centuries, cats have had to endure a plethora of superstitions and old wives’ tales in which they played the pivotal—and usually negative—role.
While it is true that, based on archaeological evidence, the earliest proof of cat domestication dates to roughly 9,500 years ago (Driscoll et al., 2007), whereas dog domestication most recently indicated a history dating back 20,000–40,000 years (Freedman et al., 2014), those who subscribe to theories of evolution might find it interesting to note that the cat family (Felidae) is said to have branched off within the carnivore family tree 10.3 million years ago as opposed to dogs at a mere 7.8 million years ago (Wesley-Hunt & Flynn, 2005).
Although none other than legendary High Renaissance Italian polymath Leonardo da Vinci proclaimed the cat “nature’s masterpiece” (Vecchia, 2006), adding that even the smallest feline is a “masterpiece,” cats have been forced to contend with misrepresentation throughout history.
At this point in time, it is estimated that a cat is a pet in at least 31 million homes (American Veterinary Medical Association, 2022). However, cats were not always so cherished, by any means. Prior to the 19th and 20th centuries, cats were viewed as merely biological specimens to be used for medical study or relegated to the status of “mouser,” where their predatory skills were all they were considered useful for (Serpell, 1996).
In some scenarios, a cat would become the whiskered muse of a writer, artist, musician, or similar creative spirit, a role I will discuss in more detail later on.
As is still the case, cats were invariably compared to dogs in past centuries, where their “usefulness” was often open for debate. Unlike dogs, who have more often than not been promoted as “family-friendly” pets perfect for households with young children, cats have been thought of as more suitable for someone single, a married couple without young children, or a family who enjoys mostly indoor activities (Bradshaw, 2013).
One thing that seems to continue to be common is that a person is thought of—by others and even themselves—as either a “dog person” or a “cat person.” Along with these blanket generalizations, various attributes are also assigned to each respective group. Women are often likened to cats in a disparaging fashion, with humor only partially disguising the sarcasm inherent in such oft-repeated quotes like this one from American science-fiction writer and aeronautical engineer Robert A. Heinlein: “Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea” (Heinlein, 1978).
Yet, when one thinks of all the brilliant, gifted, creative, and oft-times legendary men who have had pet cats—such as philosophers Jacques Derrida and Jean-Paul Sartre, iconic authors and poets Charles Dickens, Ernest Hemingway, Thomas Hardy, Mark Twain, William Butler Yeats, and T.S. Eliot, artists Pablo Picasso, Gustave Klimt, and Paul Klee, and musicians and composers including Maurice Ravel, Sergei Prokofiev, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Freddie Mercury, and John Lennon—one quickly realizes that cats have never been the companions of mostly women nor were they intended to be.
As for the connection between writers and cats, there is such a lengthy recorded history of it that, in 2018, journalist and author Alison Nastasi wrote a book entirely devoted to the bond between cats and famous writers of the past and present (Nastasi, 2018).
Centuries ago, cats were unjustly denigrated in the realm of intelligence, mostly because, unlike dogs, they neglected to do things on command and weren’t inclined to take orders. However, in recent years, studies have confirmed that cats are not only extremely intelligent but that their intellect is comparable to that of a two-year-old toddler (Vitale et al., 2019). Scientific research has also revealed that a feline’s brain structure and surface unfolding are 90% similar to the human brain (Suzuki et al., 2016).
Not only are cats intellectually similar to us, but they also have a remarkable ability to heal us, alleviating symptoms of both physical and mental illness.
While I am not a scientist who has embarked on extensive research in this field of study, it is interesting to consider that, according to the Cornell Feline Health Center, people in the United States are much more likely to become infected with Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii) by eating raw meat and unwashed fruit and vegetables (Cornell University, 2023).
Overall, hundreds of thousands more cats (approximately 530,000 cats to 390,000 dogs) perish in the euthanasia room at open-intake county shelters than dogs do every year (ASPCA, 2022), and this will only worsen with articles being published that link cat ownership with a mental illness such as schizophrenia.
These anti-cat enthusiasts fail to mention that cat ownership reduces the risk of death from heart attack by as much as one-third. This fact was discovered over the course of a ten-year study by researchers at the University of Minnesota’s Stroke Institute of Minneapolis (Qureshi et al., 2009).
Dr. Adnan Qureshi, the neurologist who was the senior author of the study, was reported to have stated, “For years we have known that psychological stress and anxiety are related to cardiovascular events, particularly heart attacks” (Qureshi et al., 2009). He went on to single out a cat’s capacity to diminish stress levels by citing the dramatically lower risk of heart attack and strokes that cat owners have.
Charles Dickens, who famously said, “What greater gift than the love of a cat?” (Dickens, 1865), knew firsthand the transformative powers of the feline. Originally a dog lover, Dickens ended up taking in his daughter Mamie’s cat. Later, when his cat Bob died, Dickens had one of Bob’s paws stuffed and mounted on a letter opener, using it as a symbol of mourning in Our Mutual Friend (Slater, 2009).
Eckhart Tolle, the brilliant German spiritual teacher and self-help author, once declared, “I have lived with Zen masters—all of them cats” (Tolle, 2008). He believes that merely watching cats can be a form of meditation.
If Leonardo da Vinci, arguably the most iconic of the “Old Masters,” enjoyed spending hours watching cats and sketching them in a variety of moods and poses, all of us can learn a great deal from these remarkable whiskered masterpieces.
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