Sin all the way?

That particular holiday, I decided to go for a run. Just as I was completing my 10km, coming around a corner, my eyes locked on two kittens. They huddled together, appearing scared, looking at all the things swiftly passing them. They were not shivering; the sun was warming up the morning. Their eyes reminded me of many cartoons that portray little Tom as a pathetic-looking cat pleading for attention from his masters.

I asked myself what would happen to them and how they landed in a world so hostile. It is no fault of theirs. They, or even we, did not ask to be born on Earth. As I do not remember asking. Just because some cat decided to be horny, again through no fault of daddy cat, the two kittens came to be. Daddy cat was programmed by Nature that it was mating season. Mommy cat was coerced to give in, for it was her oestrus cycle.

If the pitiful state of the kittens' existence was totally unnecessary and could have been prevented by Nature, instead of subjecting them defenceless to the elements, were the forces that created them a mistake? Was copulation and all the forces that paved the way for the sexual act to happen culpable of wrongdoings? The force that made all of us a wrong act, a sin? Our existence as human beings must be a mistake, all products of the Original Sin. We should not exist in the first place.

In Dicken's England, this must have been the scene. Many children must have been left in orphanages or on the streets. For no fault of theirs, they came to be. With the loosening of moral fibre in society, maybe perpetuated by increasing social divide, with the rich able to buy sex and the poor willing to lose anything for a dime, and ignorance about contraception, orphans started roaming the streets of fog-filled Victorian London. Seeing them singing for their supper and being shoved around, in my mind, they must have been no different from the cats I stumbled upon that morning.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

The spirit of the black cat...

Kuroneko (@ Black Cat, Japanese; 1968)

Director: Kaneto Shindō

Thinking about it, primitive societies of yesteryears were run mainly by female tribe members. The male members were mostly out of the scene most of the time. Some may have been out hunting for food during their caveman days. In more civil societies, when aristocracy ruled the day, the male members needed to do their national services. Many left for months or even years together to fight wars. Children mostly grow up with absent fathers. Wives led the pack in their day-to-day running of the family unit. Men were left to make many life-changing decisions like defence, security, foreign relations and food security.

Guarding the household is no small feat. Nature is very unwelcoming and hostile. Torrential rains, storms, extreme temperatures and wild beasts frequently harass their abode. So, the female species was not as fragile as modern man had made them out to be. They are actually more robust than the world credits them to be.

Both sexes had their respective roles laid out. Both factions must diligently carry out their roles for a society to continue. No one's role was superior to the other. 

When specific communities encourage men to wed more than one partner, it is not so much for carnal pleasures as for the continuity of species. Infant mortality was high, and people had short life spans. At a time when might is strength by the numbers, an extra pair of hands meant better defence and help running the household chores. 

Much like in Onibaba (1964), the villages are left to be manned by the women, as the men have all gone off to fight in local wars. After all, it was the pre-Meiji restoration of the Samurai era. Men all to bring home loot from the wars or at least bask in the glory of attaining 'samurai-hood'. Samurais carry a particular holding in society. 

A mother and daughter-in-law duo are seen eating their meal. Their dinner is ceremonially trespassed by a group of renegade samurai. They eat their dinner, rape the women, kill them and burn down the raggedy hut. A black cat licks their bodies. The spirits of the dead women come in the form of black cats to avenge every samurai that comes their way. Long story short, the husband/son of the deceased returns after the war, ordained as a samurai. He is sent to hunt down the ghost of the duo, unbeknownst to him their identity.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Nobody owes nobody nothing?

Just the day I was thinking...

Unlike my dog in childhood, Rexxie, who used to get all excited, jumpy, tongue waggly, drolly kind at the sight of any of the family members as they return home, Felix (the cat) is not the least bothered.
Returning home after a hard days' work, you think that looking at some(one) who is all excited about your return would just make you feel alright. But Felix at the corner has other plans... He saunters casually in a relaxed fashion, strutting his stuff, gyrating his hind legs (guess that is why they call it catwalk) walking haughtily  with his nose held high (like inhaling imported air) looking away from you without a care in the world. At that moment he does not need anything, only his breathing space! Just leave him alone (stop dogging him around!) pun not intended...

catwalk

He does not need you right now. You have bought his chow, his litter bag, his playpen, got his veterinary needs fulfilled. He is big and strong, he does not need you now.
That is the same story about life. Nobody owns anybody. Everybody fans for himself. At the desperate time of helplessness, nobody can help you. You have to help yourself. You have to swim yourself to shore, you have to fight the waves, shark and the wind.
Nobody owns anybody in this modern world except if you are in the human trafficking business. Your merchandise that you own is human flesh, bone and feelings that go with it.
Slavery supposed to have died, has it really?
And then there is something called emotional blackmail where some Indian mothers know just strings to pluck to strike the chord of self pity and helplessness! These strings of control are subtle ways to control the subjects and cow them to submission...

Wiser or going in circles?

At the beginning of last century, the period in the time of a child's life called childhood did not exist. People like Tom Sawyer did not have a time in their life that they can reminisce as childhood. Kids at that time just grew fast, learnt as much and as fast as they could and matured fast, in time when they are physically developed to perform the duties of an adult. Nobody bothered, and it was not a problem, that their tender years are not paved with love, affection, comradeship and groupies. They did not become deranged psychopaths ala Norman Bates. Even as late as the 70s, nineteen year olds were donning military fatigues and marching to war. 

In the Eastern culture, children were to seen, not heard. The children were basically void of emotions and were just growing vessels who were supposed to be grateful to be born, fed and prepared for the future. 

Then came the modern way of bringing up children. These vessels suddenly had become sensitive fragile mimosa pudicas that became everything that their parents thought they would not become. And to top it all up, they squarely blame their parents for all their failures in life even though their lives were indeed a bed of roses as compared to their parents and the generations before them. 

The Asian parents took this idol worshiping of these little Napoleons one step further. China's one child policy, put these oversized pampered brats on pedestal, dancing to their every whim and fancy. Combined with the desire for their children to outdo their neighbours' child, their life essentially became centered around their offspring. Every effort was taken to shield them from eventualities and cushion their every fall. 

After all these years, on the contrary, the Francophile way of bringing up children dictates that they should be left to grow on their own like wildflowers, learning things as they go on. They should not be made the centre of attention but rather be let to learn the roles and duties as adult as the children's role is just assimilate into society as adults, nothing more. 

Hey, we have now gone a complete circle. We were doing it right all along only to be advised by experts that we were doing it wrong and suggested a new method which is actually a mirror image of our old ways. Ironic!

This is also true in other fields, our diet, for example. After steaming, broiling, grilling and frying our food all this while, some are now eating their food raw as our cavemen ancestors used too. 

Pet lovers are also feeding raw food to their loved one. My cat who has been consuming pellets of food all this while would get a shock of his life and run for his life if I were to throw a raw fish at him! Don't ask about catching mice, scaredy cat!