CAT: a partially domesticated animal who keeps you as a pet

I've heard it said that dogs have masters and cats have staff.

' Why hast Thou done all this? Why hast Thou brought me here? Why, why dost Thou torment me so terribly?'
He did not expect an answer and yet wept because there was no answer and could be none. The pain again grew more acute, but he did not stir and did not call. He said to himself: 'Go on! Strike me! But what is it for? What have I done to Thee? What is it for?

'The Death of Ivan Ilych"
Leo Tolstoy

If you come close to the truth,
There are consequences.

Patience
by Kay Ryan

Patience is
wider than one
once envisioned,
with ribbons
of rivers
and distant
ranges and
tasks undertaken
and finished
with modest
relish by
natives in their
native dress.
Who would
have guessed
it possible
that waiting
is sustainable—
a place with
its own harvests.
Or that in
time's fullness
the diamonds
of patience
couldn't be
distinguished
from the genuine
in brilliance
or hardness.

We often see people who are said to be "bursting with life" and who, in fact, are simply wrestling with their own incoherence.
Merton

Life is meant to superabound but not to explode and those who are bursting with life are often merely plunging into death with an enormous splash. They do not transcend death, they surrender to it with so much vitality that they are able to drag many others with them into the abyss.
Merton