Sense of Adventure

Actually, that’s Joseph Reichert. I’ve known him about forty years now. That’s another story – or a volume. Maybe two.

What I was just moved to write about was my other best friend – or as I sometimes refer to him, “my best little friend.”

This would be my orange tabby cat TJ. Which, yes, is short for Thomas Jefferson.

You might think it would be Emma Dog, based on the volume of verbiage I generate about her in my posts. But that’s a sampling error. She’s a wonderful friend, don’t get me wrong. She’s also - even as we approach, in two days I think, the fourth anniversary of her coming to the Milán Pack – still something of a novelty in the house, whereas both cats have been with me over ten years. Also because she alone accompanies me on excursions and adventures outside the house, even no further than the backyard (and remember - if you can’t find adventure in your own backyard, why would you expect to be able to find it anywhere else?), she plays in more anecdotes. In addition, there’s frankly so much history between me and the cats that I hesitate to bring them in because I hardly know where to begin.

I’ll skip Teej’s bio for now – he’s worth a volume on his own – for an anecdote that may enlighten you as to why I consider him by best friend.

As a part of my daily ritual I recite a formula gleaned from the work of Napoleon Hill, specifically his Think and Grow Rich!* – still the best self-help book ever written, and pretty much the fountainhead from which most subsequent worthwhile self-help books have sprung. There have been advances on his work, as well there ought be: it originally came out, if I understand correctly, in the 1920s. (Nope - 1937, if one believes Wikipedia, as in this case, why wouldn’t I?) It still stands as well worth reading.

Anyway, since I began this ritual about six years ago, a curious thing has happened. I recite it by habit right after I finish breakfast or lunch (mostly semantics, there.) As it happens most times, and as it happened just a few moments ago (it’s currently 3:27 PM in the Mountain West. So, maybe chronology more than semantics.) And that is: if he’s in earshot and awake, sometimes even if he’s drowsing, TJ turns up.

In this case I sat at the dining room table (imagine that.) I hadn’t actually realized where Teej was until from my eye’s corner I saw a shadow move behind the scrim on the central front window. I saw his distinctive shadow move, saw an orange shape jump down; saw above the back of the couch a hooked orange tailtip twitch its way across the floor. Then here came the cat himself up over the sofa, down onto the hardwood floor of the dining room to butt and rub against my legs.

He came to help me, you see.

At least that’s how I interpret it. I can account for it no other way. Joe – he and TJ are one another’s greatest fans; Joe has actually used TJ as a character reference – sometimes alternates between crediting the abundant evidence he’s seen and heard himself of TJ’s surprising understanding and intelligence, and taking a “rationalist” point of view. Which is to say, supporting the conventional view over, say, the truth. In such rare moods he’s suggested that, well, when I recite my little mantra, TJ knows where I am.

The problem with this, of course, is that as long as I’m in my house, which isn’t huge, TJ has to know pretty much where I am at all times, to the extent he concerns himself. He’s a cat, for carp’s sake. He can probably hear me wherever I am even if I’m not stamping and blaspheming over a stubbed toe or broken glass. He can be lying dozing at the foot of the bed and I’m lying in bed to recite the formula; or he can be twenty feet away looking longingly outside (for neither he nor Squeak ever go outdoors.) Often he’s in another room. And most times, as soon as I start to recite it – he comes.

And for the record, while he gets treats sometimes, I’ve never given him a treat for this behavior. Not once. I do scrupulously pet and thank him. That’s just good manners.

I don’t adduce anything mystical to this. I do say that animals possess a much greater intelligence than humans have traditionally given them credit for. Which itself ought not be radical: in the last few years, not much more than ten or fifteen, real experiments into animal intelligence have been showing us the same thing – whereas before, the “rational” dogma was identical to Creationism: that we are unique and totally separate, at least as far as intelligence goes, from the other beasts of the Earth.

Also it refutes the concept – held by too many cat owners as well as cat haters, and as far as I can tell based on received interpretation rather than actual observation – that cats are utterly aloof and incapable of forming bonds of affection. TJ is as loving an individual as I’ve known in my life – and he’s shown that on many occasions, too.

As to what he’s doing – all I can say is, he appears to believe he’s helping, probably encouraging me. And while I’ve yet to fulfill the conditions of my formula, I’m now, at last, advancing more rapidly than ever before. And I do give TJ, my best friend, credit for helping me persist.

*Updated, 5:57 PM MDT - I didn’t realize earlier that Think and Grow Rich is now in the public domain. I’m all in favor of authors getting royalties - huge surprise there - but my man Napoleon Hill is dead. So here’s a link to the Sacred Texts edition. It’s free, of course. They date the book to 1938, for what that’s worth.

Sacred Texts is a valuable resource, and like Project Gutenberg, well worthy of support. Still, if you’d like to support this site (and Emma, Squeak, and TJ, not to mention, uh, me) feel free to buy the book, or any of the many others I mention, by clicking through the link to my Amazon site…

Tags: animal intelligence, friendship, Life, Milán Pack, pets, TJ

This entry was posted on Friday, May 16th, 2008 at 4:21 pm and is filed under Me. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.