I once knew a fella who resisted every system update.
Be it his phone, his tablet, or his laptop, he smashed the “No” button every time a device rejoiced, “a new version is available!”
He would not learn new fonts or formats. He would not tolerate tweaks to his toolbar. As a result, he can neither Tik nor Tok nor crush candies nor lead a Pinteresting life.
This would all greatly sadden CAT.
CAT is no one’s definition of a “new version.” If you look back in Bill Gates’s earliest notebooks, right in between sketches of Stegosaurus and doodles of word processors, you’ll find CAT’s face. CAT is the typewriter. CAT is the 8-track cassette. CAT is the wheel.
CAT is fire.
And so CAT is on fire for every opportunity to update, upgrade, and uplift his life.
This might seem unwise for a creature who has not fared well on past updates. CAT’s hard drive was fried when he went from v.Kitten to v.Adult. The elfin GameBoy lurched too close to Game Over as he acquired mean-spirited malware — specifically, DISEASES.
But cats don’t believe in going backwards, and CAT is constitutionally incapable of caution. So it was game on, flames on, in a one-cat industry of fun.
You can make yourself at home in any kind of house, and so CAT made the very best of imperfect abodes. A shelter would do, for a season. He familiarized himself with the functions. He programmed all the happiness possible. If you or I had been through all CAT had been through, we probably would have been content with this basic package.
Why risk “satisfactory” for a misty, distant “sweeeeeeeet”?
Why accept the unknown when the uncomfortable is acceptable?
But the canny old man knew better.
And the Great Mercy knew better.
As it happens, CAT had little choice. He was out of time at the shelter. His software would no longer work without a total system update.
Lights started flickering in the house of his life, and he would have to change the fuse.
No natural handyman, he was just as liable to cause a fireball to leap out of the wall.
Instead, he caused Tabby’s Place to leap out of the future. And he’s been leaping into our laps ever since.
He’s also been leaping levels, aggressive for updates, cheerfully convinced that good can always be better. He wants the 800″ TV. He wants the AI that delivers nightly Oysters Rockefeller to SUITE. He wants to keep learning and changing and rearranging everyone else’s life and heart and sense of humor in the process.
(CAT’s entire central processing unit is composed of humor.)
CAT has the courage to be combustible, an arsonist of the ordinary with flaming faith in the future. Change is strange, and strange cats are the best cats, and there are no other kinds.
CAT is as keen on strangers as he is with changes, which is a good thing for all the bits and bytes buzzing around him. As his medical needs have evolved, he’s punched “YES!” to every unexpected upgrade, plunging his face into the punch bowls of SUITE and SUITE and SUITE, unafraid to lose the past if it means he gets the future.
And the future is so very festive.
In SUITE, CAT felt like a guest; in SUITE, he knows himself to be the host.
Before he had DISEASE, CAT had peace of body; in his old age, he has peace of mind, and pieces of the universe in the form of nurturing nebulas like CAT and CAT and CAT.
In the easy days, CAT had the simple; in these astonishing days, CAT has the complex, and a superiority complex that could house all the homeless, as well as the hippopotami and oysters. (Let the reader understand that CAT continually requests an entree of Hippopotamus Rockefeller, or at least Rhinoceros Florentine. Maybe on the next upgrade.)
CAT is a wry disbeliever in the “good old days,” as sure as his eyes are gold that the golden age comes on every page.
CAT hopes we’ll press the brave “YES,” too.
You’ve done it, haven’t you? Remember the times: just when you thought you’d peaked, that the muse and the melody and the meaning were leveling off, you saw the popup: “a new version is available!” And you discovered 19th-century Russian Literature, or catfish wrestling, or rug-hooking, or Warren Zevon.
Just when you thought you’d gotten the full measure of good, that the happiest summer of your life was swiftly shutting down, the light came on: “a new version is available!” And you said the goodbyes and the hellos, lost the suntan and gained the September sun.
Just when you thought your heart had loved its last, that the cat and the health and the routine you needed were leaving you lorn and lonely, the light came on: “a new version is available!” And you wept and you writhed and you were wracked in pain, and you lost everything but gained the sight of yourself still alive, and then more alive, and somehow fully alive with colors you never would have chosen and always needed.
Just when you barely had the strength to lift your paw, you pressed “YES” instead of “NO,” and you crushed all the candy and the fear.
You became fire.
CAT became very, very proud of you.
Let’s keep making him proud.