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C. E. O. CAT – Who’s the smartest cats or humans-Read and learn!
By fred | October 23, 2008
With all the talk of company problems, C.E.O.’s screwing up, I remembered a book I had started a number of years ago, just another of my unfinished projects that I have so many of.
If I had a choice on this earth of what I would have preferred to be– it would have been a writer. A writer of fiction, well maybe not pure fiction, what I love to do is include friends I have had for a lifetime into my stories, I am not a snob, I put my animal buddies into stories also – fun putting them into crazy, wild situations, mostly humorous situations I can sit writing and be laughing away. One day Sally, my bride now for 59 years one day opened the door to my home office and asked what was going on what was I laughing about? I told her I was just writing a book, she gave me a strange look and shook her head. Yes, I am afraid she sometimes wonders at this strange guy she has shared her life with all those years.
To me, getting friends or all of us together into situations, wild funny situations, makes writing a ball, a ton of fun. That I have sent hundreds of copies to agents and publishers with no response is true. It made me feel bad that only two responded to my fiction writing, and only one positively–has dampened my visions of fame as a writer; hopefully someday I will expand on those attempts at literary fame and relate further those attempts, but not now. The only thing I have ever been paid to write is my book on investing and my monthly stock letter, which highly pisses me off, folks seem to want to pay to make money but not be willing to have a little fun. Oh, well!!
Training? For a writer? None, except several courses at the University of Southern California in business writing, mainly correspondence. There I have had experience, I must have written thousands of letters over the course of my approximately forty years as C.E.O. of our family import and wholesale businesses.
We are still in the middle of my family tales ‘Everybody’s Danish’ but I would like to take a break from that and since the stock market and the failed decisions of so many corporate C.E.O.’s are being written about so much I would like to send you in the next weeks – a couple of chapters I did on a book I intended to write about cats and their controlling our lives.
When you are finished with these chapters in a few weeks I will bet you agree with me that your family house cat has most of the qualifications of an excellent corporate C.E.O.
Those of you that have been with me for the many years when I wrote my monthly investment “Chipping from the rough!’ stock research reports for Investment Systems Inc.may realize the time frame. I note in the first chapter that you will be reading I state my age of 75 years, since I am 79 now, it was written four years ago, my how time flies. My attempt of a few chapters about C.E.O. CAT written a few year ago really are timeless - the taints of your family cat have not changed in those four years and likely will not until the end of time. After all – how can you improve on superior intelligence? Your family cat will agree that their intelligence needs no improvement – humans are the stupid ones. Reluctantly I have to agree and think you will after the next couple weeks.
Oh, I haven’t forgotten ‘Everybody’s Danish’ and we will get back to the Nielsen family, we just started there. I just figured a break would be in order.
Chapter One – C.E.O. Cat
You may think that the relationship of your family cat to the discipline of running a major corporation or investing in stocks are a far reach. Maybe —but after years of researching companies, many huge major multinational corporations, I have concluded that not just one but any of the cats that consented to share our lives over a 75 year span of years could do a far better job in many situations that confronted those corporations than the present C.E.O.’s (Chief Executive Officers). Why? Because your average house cat is far more disciplined, far more focused on what they want done, they are very persistent when they want something done.
Your family cat has what is known in business as a ‘hands on’ method of controlling a situation. Your family cat is highly disciplined, your cat will set rules that you, as his or her employee, will abide by. You may not realize the rules they have set up or the discipline that they have installed because they have had the patience to install that discipline and rules of behavior over a prolonged period of time. Patience and discipline is a required trait of a good C.E.O making those six and seven figure salaries. Now you should be getting a glimmer of light as to why I titled this book ‘C.E.O. Cat.’
To provide some substance to this argument and to give you a few of my credentials we will have to talk about me for a few seconds. I was the C.E.O. of our family importing/wholesale food and beverage business for over 40 years. Besides that basic ‘hands on’ experience for more years than I care to remember the stock market and I have maintained a love affair. In most ‘love’ affairs there are good times and bad times, ups and downs, my love affair with Wall Street have been no different. Extracting wealth from Wall Street is not always an easy chore. The key to successfully making money is a combination of discipline, research, being focused and having patience, that and a mathematical system that enforces the investment discipline of buying and selling. The investor that lets his emotions of fear, greed or just a hunch creep into a decision is lost, oh – he or she may be lucky for a spell but over the long run they will lose, a fact of life.
After retirement for many years I wrote articles for investors on the internet culminated by writing a book to relate that discipline, the book was titled, ‘Making money is simple! Just boring!’ In association with Stocksystem.com I am also the author and analyst for a monthly internet depressed stock report called ‘Chipping from the rough!
Maybe I am fantasizing that a cat could do a better job of running a major corporation; however the ease they show in manipulating those of the human species leads me to believe that it would be possible. There would be one major flaw in the character of your cat that may preclude their advancement in the business world and that is their lack of greed. Kitty is not greedy, as long as you do everything he or she requires keeping him or her well fed, warm, comfortable and loved he or she could care less for any other advancement monetary or otherwise. C.E.O. Cat knows when it has it made from then all it is all retirement mode for Cat.
Looking back over the years it is impossible to think of those years in terms of human life only. I cannot comprehend a day where our family cat or family dog did not play some part in our lives. Just family, mixing with family.
In our family animals were just that, – family. They greet us with happiness when we come home from work, – said good-bye when we left at least the family dogs did, often with woeful eyes. Our cats, they may raise an eye lid in recognition of our leaving but they certainly knew the routine well enough not to get overly excited or concerned like the stupid family dog about us coming or going. They may get a bit more active on our return as that was usually near their dinner time and immediate action would be required of us to eliminate their concerns.
Family pets were asked to make room for us on the couch when we wanted to sit down. They were told not to make a mess with their dinner. Chided for yelling too much for their supper or breakfast. We never talked to our animals differently that we talked to one another. If they were ‘pissed’ off about some of our actions they may stomp off with ears back and tail flicking back and forth so show displeasure. The family cat certainly does not need words to communicate displeasure that is obvious by their actions. One does not have to communicate using a verbal language, in many cases your pets actions certainly speak louder than words.
It is a given that they are as well versed in the English language as we humans. I never remember our feline friends not understanding in some shape or form what we said. This may apply in some cases to the family dog however the family cat is by far the superior in brainpower.
Your cat may not speak the English language, or whatever language that is spoken in your home but he or she has no problem expressing his or her needs and his or her desires. Letting you know his or her displeasure if they are not acted upon immediately or to his or her satisfaction. You can also be darn sure that the parts of the English language related to his or her welfare are completely understood and known. ‘Come,’ ‘no,’ ‘stop,’ ‘bad,’ ‘how could you?’ other rejoinders of bad behavior or demands on their dignity (Who are you to tell me to come now?) may be ignored at the time. Be assured that kitty understood! Just kitty will not be rushed especially by a lowly servant in his household. Words such as ‘dinner,’ ‘breakfast,’ ‘kitty treat,’ are well understood and usually acted upon, mostly in a slow dignified manner just to show you who is really the boss and that she or he is going to eat the food just to please you, not because of any need on their part and only ‘if’ you have prepared it properly. The vocabulary of the family cat is amazing when they want it to be, they will analyze each word to see if it fits into their plans, if not, you are ignored and you will note that the English vocabulary or whatever language is spoken has suddenly been erased from their minds.
Maybe if I were to analyze it all, instead of being versed in the English language, it is more their being so attuned to our feelings, the expression of those feelings, that our cats would know what we were saying in any given situation. That has to be the case. Think about it, – a brain with the ability to comprehend another being, another living creature, just by being so attuned to that person that it would know by instinct what they want. Know what their humans are attempting to say to them, in the strange language they use. Knowing all this just by being so attuned to their humans emotionally. I can find no other explanation than this for the ability of our pets, especially our cats to comprehend us. Our four legged friends are indeed the smart ones, not us clumsy two legged human mammals. They have no formal education, years of going to a school; it just comes naturally, by instinct.
Wherever the expression, ‘dumb animals,’ came from is far beyond me. There never were, and never has been ‘dumb animals’ in our family that I remember. I do remember when maybe one of us humans in the family could do something dumb. Our animals usually had a good solid reason for whatever they did. This relates not only to our family cats or family dogs, but to some ‘feathered’ family we had for a period of time. There were no dumb bells there either.
For some reason I have a bad habit of using the word ‘our’ in my writing about animals especially ‘our’ feline family. Now this can be true of ‘our’ dogs, but it is not so true of ‘our’ family cats. ‘They,’ the cats, may use that expression of possession, but us owning them is a big joke. How they gain possession of a family, how they make the whole family, including the dogs, jump at their command is a wonder of life. I never remember a family cat, no matter how loving that could be considered a possession; – it is the other way around.
It may be in the beginning of a relationship that you felt you were giving the cat a home, a family, so it was ‘your’ cat. That relationship stood for only a short time. Somehow every feline member in our family life soon changed that relationship. It is ‘they’ that developed ‘us’ as servants, as their employees. The relationship soon became one of boss and employee, they soon gained the states the title of C.E.O., and once they gain that control, hold it firmly. We soon learned to obey or suffer the consequences. We were ‘their’ family, their employee, not the cat being ‘our’ family.
We may at their discretion be allowed to pet them; we may be allowed to feed them. If they don’t like what they are fed they will advise you immediately. If they really do not like what we have prepared for their meal they will go on a hunger strike and are disciplined enough to outlast us until we have pangs of guilt and are forced to buy the expensive stuff or whatever they determine is acceptable. We will be required to let them go outside when they wish, and let them in our home when they wish. If by some act on our part, we screw up, offend their dignity in any way; be prepared to pay the price. They will not purr, you will get a few angry tail shakes, the ears will twitch, the eyes will flash, you will be immediately aware that you screwed up. The furniture, or some expensive prized rug, may get a going over with their claws, – all just to let you know who is who. They are only letting you know who is in control.
If they are inside cats and somehow you have not cleaned their potty box often enough or not to their satisfaction kitty may just take a dump on the rug or floor usually just in front of the offensive potty box just so you get the message.
You will soon find out the answer to “Who is boss around here?” Was there ever any doubt? A month after the new family kitty enters your home, – the cat you thought you ‘owned’ is now consolidating his or her position of power and is often already in complete control. The household runs on his or her timetable. This amazing event seems to happen so fast, so soon after taking in one of these most amazing of God’s creatures. The speed of the transition does not really give one the ability to think of the devious maneuvers that transpired to accomplish this turn-a-round in the relationship. The cat does it so naturally.
Does a cat have feelings? Does it have a brain to analyze a situation? Think of what I just described. Their amazing ability to manipulate a human being, to control a situation, has amazed me for a lifetime. I am still not sure I have any understanding of how they do it, how they can take control so fast. If I did I would probably be running the largest corporation in the world at a salary of millions of dollars. The answer to if they have a brain to analyze, to size up a situation, to calculate with, is yes. Yes on all counts and probably many more I can’t think of.
It is also amazing that this trait of controlling humans in a shared household is not some special trait of some highly bred feline. Pick any kitten off the street, any ‘alley’ cat, if you will, and they will exhibit this same trait of immediately taking control of the family home. Alley cat they may have been when they entered the family home, but within weeks, if not days, they are in total control. The ‘she’ alley cat is now a queen, and the ‘he’ has developed the attitude of king. When you think about it, this has to be a bit disconcerting. In effect your cat by taking over so quickly is telling you who is the boss in this house and who had the superior mental intellect to get there. If you think you are smarter than your cat you are sadly mistaken.
The family dog usually is easier to maintain control of. Dogs are pack animals by nature. If left in the wilderness without human guidance, a leader of the pack will emerge and they will follow that leader. This is probably why they are willing to accept a family or a single adult as that leader and be willing to follow the commands of that leader, or those of his family of humans. They are willing to let the decisions of when, how, or where be taken over by another. With proper training they will follow, will commit heroic fearless deeds for you without stopping to think of the effect it could have on their life or well-being
Say you are walking in the forest with your dog, a bear attacks, and a very big ferrous bear. A loving, devoted dog will give its life to protect you. In a rare case this may be true of your cat; however it is extremely doubtful that your cat will be so stupid as to attack something or anything so much larger than it is.
Your family cat will analyze the situation first and make a decision based on facts not heroics. The family cat may have been a part of a family when it is a kitten for a few months, but that is all. A feline is a private animal. They hunt alone, they clean themselves, they constantly think and act alone, and – their whole thinking processes is about, – ‘what is best of me.’ Not what is best for a pack, or the family? They are certainly not pack animals. They may be together for mating, but that is usually the extent of their relations with another feline. Therefore they will carefully think out and analyze a situation before acting.
Be assured that they can commit great acts of courage; however this is mainly in self-protection. If running is the smart thing to do, they will run. They will not let ego or any macho stuff affect that judgment.
If the same situation happened, you are walking in the woods, (this time with the family cat), same huge bear attacks you. The cat will quickly analyze the situation and determine that ‘you’ screwed up, his or her stupid master should never have made kitty go for a walk in the first place. It may well analyze that you are the dumb bell that is responsible for jeopardizing its life. In a second your family cat will take off as fast as it can go, – it is every man for himself or herself.
If you can find fault with that decision – fine, I can’t —that decision was smart, the family cat will live to fight or run another day let the stupid dog be a hero. His or her thinking may be “If my human is dumb enough to get himself in a situation like this, it is his problem to get out of it himself, and he should not expect a kitty of get him out of trouble.”
If you think your family cat is a coward you are sadly mistaken, let’s take this same situation one step further. If that huge bear trapped the family cat in a confined area where there was no place to run, then you would have another situation entirely. If our feline determines that it must stand and fight, – it will. That bear may win in the end, dreadfully harm or kill our kitty but he will be one ripped up bear and will know he was in a fight. A small family cat that has determined he or she must fight is a fearful sight, from a loving pet to a fearsome determined warrior in seconds, I know of no family cat that is a coward if confronted with a situation that he or she determines needs a fight to survive – kitty will fight to it’s last breath and fight heroically. In the reverse there is no family cat dumb enough to stand and fight in a hopeless situation, bravery is one thing, being stupid is another, your family cat can never be accused of being stupid.
As we delve into these amazing creatures that shared so much of my life, hopefully we will try to develop insight into the minds and actions of these wondrous animals as we go along.
Each of our cats, our companions through the years made a contribution to our lives, their actions, their individual characteristics all left an indelible impression. All were family, some much more, they owned a piece of our hearts; the ache of losing them, when it was their time, will never entirely go away. They were certainly loved, and they gave so much more love in return. Can you ask for more from any breathing creature on the face of this earth?
Topics: THIS & THAT from Uncle Fred | 1 Comment »
October 24th, 2008 at 2:01 pm
Fred, I don’t understand how you can call yourself a “liberal”. You are wealthy. You have owned sucessful businesses.
Conservatism means promoting every individual to be the best they can be. GET TO THE TOP, CREATE YOUR SUCESSFUL BUSINESS, on your own, and be free from opressionable taxation.
Liberalism means taking care of everyone by “spreading the wealth”. Ed Kennedy is creating NATIONAL HEALTHCARE from his deathbed. Cival “RIGHTS” will mean everyone owns a home and car. Where the hell is THAT in the Constitution?
I had to go downtown this morning. My travel took me past the foodbank. The line was two blocks long. On the other side of the street, were business windows advertising “HELP WANTED”.
J.D.