Nature offers invaluable examples, none more riveting than animals, including their tendency to sidestep self-pity. In the modern era, everyone has a cause, grievance, or reason to protest, or to ask the government for money, making themselves the cause. Animals do not do that. They make no room for self-pity.
To mind comes the example of a cat we had. She lived 18 years, a wonderful cat named Tigre, a fighting Maine Coon. We let her out every day. She came home every night or the next morning. We watched her character, invariably catlike, insistent, naturally indulgent at times, sure that she was right, but no self-pity.
You may doubt me, make light of the idea that anyone can learn anything from a cat, since – as they say – “dogs have masters, cats have staff” – but they teach. As do dogs. You might be surprised.
Cats put on a good show, prance around like they own the world, preen for attention, and sometimes avoid any responsibility for the chaos they so casually, deliberately, and indifferently create.
But there is more to a cat than meets the eye, and more to life than imagining they have less character than vanity, less strength than a tendency to demand attention. In a way, they are a reflection of the human race, no lack of vanity, need for attention, and self-absorption.
But cats, like dogs – and I have one dying of cancer right now – are an example also of hidden strength, hidden will to live, to give, to be loved, and to love. They are more than we often give credit for, especially in a whirling, rush-rush, “just an animal” world. They teach.
So, what do I mean? Only this. In the modern world, we teach kids, by example and acquiescence, to believe it is fine to make demands, stake a claim to someone else’s pie or hard-earned tax dollars, believe you are deprived, insufficiently recognized, deserve more, and that they should work less and ask more, find truth on U-tube, and never suffer without self-pity.
Cats and dogs seldom, if ever, do that. Our wonderful 18-year-old cat, Tigre, faced down a fox – nose to nose – and the fox was terrified, ran, never returned. She – and another Maine coon – chased a dog off the property, leaving him wondering whether Darwin was right or just daydreaming.
And then one day, like my wonderful rescue dog, at my feet as I write, got cancer. She did not know it, just felt it. Cats do not, so far as I know, have a word for cancer, and if they did, it would get subsumed in a long hiss. But she knew things needed fixing, and so she came to us.
The vet – to save her for a time – removed one of her legs. To the humans around her, including my kids, the event was traumatic, something to be mourned or worried over, or discussed. To Tigre? Nothing at all. Within an hour, she was stable, able to jump, run, chase, walk, and seemed to have wholly forgotten she ever had a fourth leg.
I kid you not, there was not one ounce of looking back, not one bit of self-pity, or of “if only,” or “oh gosh,” or “poor me,” not a sliver, not even a whine or mope. She was all in for life, with her three legs and all that they could do for her, and had a fox appeared, she would have been at him in a blink.
So, what did that event teach us? That cats – and my dog is the same, although still on all four – have no time for self-pity. This business about griping, complaining, and wishing things were better, when they are as they are, and that is God’s design, is for the birds.
But not really, as birds do not complain either. It is just an indulgence of humans, something we permit ourselves. Our best moments – and I am sure I will regret writing this, except that cats and dogs cannot read, so far as I know – are when we adopt that attitude, look beyond what ails us.
Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, attorney, and naval intelligence officer (USNR). He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (2018), and is National Spokesman for AMAC. Robert Charles has also just released an uplifting new book, “Cherish America: Stories of Courage, Character, and Kindness” (Tower Publishing, 2024).
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