i recently moved into a house with some other people. they have cats which they have owned for many years. after living here for a while, i was sitting on the c

i recently moved into a house with some other people. they have cats which they have owned for many years. after living here for a while, i was sitting on the couch watching star trek with these people when one of the cats came up and sat on my lap. they were shocked. that cat didnt sit on any of their laps, ever. and they became a little jealous. this happens literally every time i take up residence with people who own cats. their cats become very attached to me and the owners become jealous. one time, very very jealous. most people are very blunt. they do not see past the surface of anything. they are impressed with superficial charm and not much else. they arent able to see inside a person, to figure out how their mind works or what it would be like to wear their shoes. they dont build models to explain the world and they arent interested in knowing how anything works. they dont listen when people speak. most people are stupid. and most of the time, this kind of talk is cast aside as being too vague and qualitative. but i have quantified it with cats. when you consider a cat, the first impulse is to anthropomorphize. and since the cat cant speak, your assumptions about what it wants are guided by your anthropomorphism. most people only get this far and so most peoples relationship with their cats are really relationships with themselves. but some people pay close attention to what the cat is doing and how it responds to things, and carefully pack away that data instead of just writing it off as noise or "thats just what cats do." eventually you are able to demonstrate to the cat, through your actions, that you understand what it is feeling and what it wants. when a cat realizes that you are paying attention, that you are listening, it is a very different experience for the cat. the cat understands whats going on and will act in a way that is designed to communicate. and they will also trust and love you much, much more than anyone else because they know you are listening. thats the key, they are smart enough to know. most people assume they are dumb, and attribute their aloofness to it. people get super jealous because they think they are showering their cats with love. and they try to fix it by loving them more, but it just makes it worse. if a person has cats and has not unlocked this line of communication, in my experience they also havent deeply understood other humans or anything else. and i almost never meet people who have.