Seeking Intelligence Please

You know, after getting into The Tomcat Murr, I started to get a lot out of it. I am someone who always links things to my own life, and perhaps this is a little self-seeking but it’s how I stay interested in books, stories etc. I admit, it took me a bit to get into this very interestingly structured novel, as it was a strain on my brain (rhyme! Point for me. I love rhyming). We don’t even realize how much we are consumed by the norm of today’s society, the way we read things and the normalcies of our books etc. We may not think they are ‘normal,’ I for one read some weird shit, but they are all structured very similarly and tend to have a beginning, middle, and end and stick to the same viewpoint. Murr doesn’t do this, it has two spliced stories both of which are very different characters and times and from different viewpoints. Phew it most definitely takes some focus.

Any who, back to my point. If I ever have a point…I sometimes just ramble and hope a point sticks out somewhere in the mess of things. My copy of Murr is now full of ripped out scraps of paper where I wrote down quotes I liked and connected them to my own life or at least our own time. I think I will start cleaning out my book by ranting about at least on of these scraps.

An interesting quote Murr brings up somewhere near the beginning of the story says: "And so we've dismissed the intellectual capacity of the animal kingdom, which is often expressed in the most remarkable manner, by calling it instinct." I had never thought about this, how we do not often call our animals intelligent. Murr's first work is "Thought and Intuition: Cat and Dog." He too, even after deriding humans for doing this to animals, dismisses the intelligence of those he considers below him. I feel as if we do this even to other humans, not just animals, because we always need to feel above someone. We belittle those individuals we feel below us, we scrutinize them for something to mock, anything from how they walk to some manner of their speech. I've noticed how I hate this sometimes, even though I consider myself an easy target for mockery and actually welcome it in many cases (I possibly make fun of myself more than anyone else). Sometimes it just doesn't sit right with we, so I started thinking about those situations. I realized they tend to be those situations in which I am trying to show my intelligence by making a point or argument and all someone does is make fun of how many times I said "like" or how passionate I became with my hands etc. I'm expressing my comprehension, my savvy, my skill, my understanding and all my listener is doing is patronizing and attempting to demean me. I'm sure their motive is not consciously to feel above me, but why do we do this to each other sometimes, particularly in these moments? Murr is annoyed with man for looking down on the intelligence of animals but he does it to Ponto all the time and other animals. I am annoyed with certain individuals for doing this to me, but I know for a fact I do it right back. Why? Could I not possibly feel good about myself if I did not know how many others were below me? And why do I even keep saying that people ARE below me? Are we really above or below anyone else on the whole?


"Very well! Let it all end in mad confusion!" as Master Abraham said quite rightly. I think all my blog posts could end with this quote. Questions to me often lead to more confusion then clarity, but I ask anyways.