The Catfish

If you are a cat person with cat interests, you live in a phenomenologically quite different world (Umwelt) than other people do, who treat cats with disregard or even, heaven forbid, disdain. You become sensitized and reactant to certain things in the environment you'd otherwise not notice, let alone pay close attention to.

Some people (lucky or unlucky) always see a dark cat passing by the outskirts of their field of vision. It is a paradoxical cat that disappears whenever they try to focus directly on it and re-appears whenever they turn back to their business. You could compare it to a love interest; it finds you, when it feels right and ready, as King Solomon observed. Other people may experience motoric problems while walking; out of nowhere a cat appears and tackles them sideways, usually in a vain attempt to pass between their legs. Not infrequently, it's a very real cat, they happen to know well, being its owners and all. At other times, the same esteemed cat owners tumble down for no other reason than their own clumsiness and the mental cat they forgot to remove from their walking path.

We shall only mention in passing the plethora of visual and auditive hallucinations one can encounter when in search for a missing cat. Every stone and pole every deserted card box, takes on the shape of the missing cat. The sound of silence is like a void, giving birth to none other than the cat sounds you'd expect to hear. Not even in your dreams are you totally exempt from the terror of the Pet Cemetery, so powerfully evoked by the unparalleled master of the horror tale, Mr. Stephen King.

I've been wondering for some time about the Catfish. Why it is in a manner of speaking a composite animal, half cat half fish. I'm sure there is a very good explanation that could easily be found on the Yinnernet. But that would remove some of the magic of the name for me. Max Weber talked about the Entzauberung der Welt, the process of emptying the World (and the word) of magic. It's mostly a good thing, getting real answers instead of fairy tales, but sometimes it's too much of a good thing. So with all due respect to knowledge and enlightenment - I'd like to toy a little longer with the Catfish in my mind, before handing it back to pure reason and cool science.

Mind you, there's an obvious corrolary to the Catfish. Almost its mirror image. It's called the fish cat. Not every cat is a true fish cat. It depends on inborn proclivities and early nurture experiences. Aerial for instance, scores very high on a nine point fish liking likert scale. He totally agrees with statements such as "there is nothing I'd rather have for dinner than fish" or "fish is my favorite dish". The other cats are somewhat less keen, but they too can be talked into it. So while the Catfish remains a rather enigmatic creature, you may say, the fish cat is pretty straight forward and easy to spot out. Just take something fishy out of the fridge and you get crazy action on the kitchen floor. A mad frenzy takes hold of the fish cat that only a fish in the flesh can satisfy.

I've heard some time ago, that a woman was catfished on the Yinnernet. I think she meant to say, she was fooled by some impersonator. I hate to think what the Catfish has done to deserve being compared to an impersonator, the same way I find it appalling that people speak of copycats, usually in a very derisive manner.

So, enough of all this anti-felinism and may the Catfish take you if you are ever thinking of breaking bad on a cat.