Word
about a new internet phenomenon named 'cat punching' has been going around
social media lately. It started with a Facebook Page set up to publicize a
Valentine's day "cat punching event", which apparently (I say
apparently cause I haven't actually seen it with my own eyes as the page was
taken down by Facebook already) showed pictures of a guy holding a cat and
looking like he was going to punch it in the face, pictures of dead animals and
comments like
"I prefer the
full grown cats, honestly, the little ones can't take a punch to save their
lives. It's pathetic."
Here's what the news
website Mirror had to say about it:
The page was set up to advertise a cat-punching event
on Valentines Day and appears to have been opened by Jamie Card, which is the
name of a well-known troll known for launching online pranks.
Although the event might be little more than a sick
joke, cat lovers took it very seriously.
At one point today, more than 1,000 people signed the
petition against cat-punching in just one hour.
Pasted
from <http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/technology-science/technology/sick-cat-punching-facebook-page-pulled-5133475>
While
many arguments on cat punching might be about:
- Whether or not this 'cat punching event' is a serious proposal
- If the cat punching implied in the pictures did in fact happen (as opposed to it being an intended 'joke' and the guy just pretending to hit the cat)
- How sick and cruel it is to joke about and suggest harming animals and post dead pictures of cats on Facebook
...I
would more like to draw the attention to the polarity play out that is hiding
behind what is essentially people expressing their intense hatred for cats,
also on this webpage titled 'things I want to
punch in the face: cats' where someone has listed all their reasons for why
they hate cats.
So this
polarity play-out that I am talking about involves all the hundreds if not
thousands of cat videos showing how cute cats are and websites about why cats
are absolutely awesome, created by 'cat-lovers'.
Because on the one hand there is this adoration for
cats which shouldn't actually surprise us that on the other hand there are people
who are going to 'hate' that which others 'love'.
After
all, isn't that how love and hate work - meaning, hand in hand? Where ever
there is love, there is also hate, which actually seem to be the two major
experiences that we humans get to choose from when it comes to how we will
experience ourselves in this world.
It is
easy for us to point fingers at the ones who express hate towards things in
this world, but we don't seem to be willing to see where the hate originates
from in the first place or consider that we might be contributing to the very
existence of it by our very participation in its polar opposite, being love.
This point of people hating cats, creatures whom are loved by many others, is
but one example of this hate-love polarity play-out that exists within each and
every one of us.
I am sure
that we can all find examples of things that we 'absolutely hate' just because
of how other people 'absolutely love' those very things. And the fascinating
aspect about this hate experience, is that its very starting point is to in a
way function as 'counter-weight' for the 'love' expressed by other people. It's
as though we are all in this constant dance with each other trying to balance
out the love and hate in this world.
And this
is forming quite the problem as you can see exemplified by the cat punching
phenomenon, be it real or not - the point is that hate in relation to cats or
any other creature in this world shouldn't exist within us in the first place.
And, this may come as a shock to many, but neither should love. This because
the love and hate polarity that we have been participating in as though it is
the very essence of who we are as human beings or the purpose of life is in
actuality the very thing that is sabotaging our ability to see things for what
they are.
We will
either 'love' something or we will 'hate' it, or we're simply indifferent about
it because it doesn't fall into these categories, but we never notice or see
things as what they are. We rather have this strange tendency to want to
categorize everything in our reality into how we prefer to experience
ourselves, which is within feelings and emotions, positive and negative
internal sensations and reactions and so we fail to recognize that reality in
itself is never siding within any of those categories. Reality is just here. A
cat is just a cat, it doesn't need us to love or hate it.
If anything what this world needs is for us to
just let it be what it is. We'd still need to take care of it, sure, but taking
care of something or someone requires things like attention, consistency,
trustworthiness and stability - not love. Love, and consequently hate along
with all of our other feelings and emotions which we may want to use to define
and label the world that we see around us, is something that is entirely about
ourselves and our own want to experience things, to feel things about
ourselves, this world, cats, … and basically our reluctance to simply do the
things that need to be done to create a world that isn't as dysfunctional as it
is currently.
A
solution here would be to redefine the word love so that it doesn't end up
creating hate. Redefining love can be done
by making sure that our 'love' for cats or any other creature or
manifestation in this world isn't just a feeling and a statement anymore.
Loving something should imply that you stand as custodian and care-taker and
that you take responsibility, which should be an inherent trait of our
existence as humans on earth anyways. As long as our 'love' is a feeling, then
that 'love' is bipolar and we are in fact causing hate to emerge. So, it's time
to stop pointing fingers and to start taking responsibility for what we create.