Hello Tom. It’s nice to see you again so soon.
I’ve been out of the neighborhood all week. I found a big park about one night’s walk from here and I spent a lot of the time hiding in a tree, listening to the things that humans like to talk about.
You know I’ve always mistrusted humans but yesterday I made a human friend. He can even speak a little bit of Cat, but mostly he spoke to me in Human Words. We sat together a long time, and I knew I could trust him because he could sit without talking at the opposite end of the bench with his back to me. You and I know how logical it is to cover each other’s backs, but I never met a human who knew that.
My human is good to me, but he doesn’t much understand cat ways.
This human was an older one with silver hair, who had seen a lot of life, just like me.
It turns out that he’d read about the escaped laboratory cat who died the other day. He’s one of the Greens, and he was sickened and saddened by the terrible things being done to us in those places.
But he also said that there were still some small examples of of humans doing something good. He told me about a good-hearted human who built a home for monkeys that had spent their entire lives in a laboratory. He’d been able to get them when the research humans no longer had any use for them.
Aren’t monkeys those animals who are cousins to the humans? How could they be so cruel to their own relatives?
Oh, poor Fraidy Kat. If humans can become callous and cruel to each other, it’s easy to see how they could treat animals as if we’re just things with no feelings.
The human who built the home for laboratory survivors was someone who’d found out how his cousins were being treated and decided to save as many as he could.
Does this mean that animals won’t be hurt in laboratories anymore?
I’m so sorry Fraidy, but it’s still as bad as ever. Nearly all the other humans still think of us as their playthings, to abuse and then throw away.
The saddest thing he told me, was what one of the research humans said about the human who saved the monkeys. His heart was so hardened that he dismissed it as a trick by those humans who are Green and believe in the right of animals to have their own dignity. He said that humans who do these kind things are just trying to prevent him from imprisoning and using animals for his own purposes.
But why? Why are humans so cruel?
These laboratory humans don’t see themselves as cruel. They have the idea of helping other humans, but they’ve had to harden their hearts in order to avoid feeling shame. They do horrible things to us but can tell themselves they were doing something good. They call this “the ends justify the means”.
My new human friend explained something to me that he called Karma. The idea is pretty simple — good causes bring good results and bad causes bring bad results. No matter how humans may excuse their cruelty as being for good ends, they can’t deny the laws of Karma.
He said that after many generations of animal research and many new medicines, rich humans can live longer, but nearly all humans are less happy than their parents were.
He believes that the wholesale torture of animals over such a long time has brought nothing but bad Karma to our land. More knowledge and better medicines are not enough to make up for the frustration and discouragement that people feel inside. Whatever benefits humans get from abusing the rest of us will never make them happy, because they had to rid themselves of compassion to achieve them.
But can all humans really be that bad?
Not all of them, Fraidy. My human friend told me about the Great Human Teacher who had said that if you cannot love it doesn’t matter if you gain the whole world — you will still never be happy. Most humans have heard these words but very, very few try to follow them.
Oh, Tom. Will it ever change?
I don’t know Fraidy, but for tonight you’ll be safe under your bed.
Good night Tom.
Good night Fraidy Kat.
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links
Local News | Former lab chimps find new life beyond cages | Seattle Times Newspaper
