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I genuinely recommend a pet, especially a cat, to any depressed person reading this comment with even just a modicum of income. It’s the perfect amount of responsibility and payoff, to put it in terms a robot could understand. It’s very hard to fuck up so badly to cause permanent injury or death, and most unadopted cats live lives much worse than you at your worst. Take the risk, adopt, fix, and grow.
My neighbour got a dog but they do not look after it. Please only get a pet if you plan to give it love. Leaving it at the house all day while you work and not taking it for walks is completely unfair on the animal, and they (and everyone in our building) suffer because of it.
That said, especially for introverts, a dog can be a magical thing. Proper care requires daily walks and dogs are, by nature, gregarious. Some breeds will attract other people without effort (I had a beagle and had I known how appealing they were to other people, I would have gotten one when I was a lonely single man). Walking a dog daily means you get daily exercise and daily socialization.
I would agree, but with a caveat, especially with a cat: be prepared for a long haul, and possibly not what you expected. I got a cat when I was 23 and single, and after a couple years (and marriage) she got a seizure disorder that required twice-daily medicine. She lived for 17 years. She was an extraordinary companion, but if you had told me that I would turn 40 before she passed, and would move her through five states, I would have never believed you. My wife passed, then one year to the day, that cat passed. So aside from the obvious, I wouldn’t trade the experience with her for anything.
Very sorry for your loss. I imagine that you were glad to have your cat for that one more year.
Plus, the act of caring for another living being can sometimes make it easier to start caring for yourself.
One of the costs, if you are childfree, is that you now go from zero dependents to non-zero dependents. This cuts off a lot of options in life: your remote job can no longer be done from Japan for two months in the summer or an island in Thailand for a quarter in the winter.

There is a huge value to being able to travel for long periods on short notice in the first half of one’s life. A pet mostly/usually prevents that.

> I genuinely recommend a pet, especially a cat, to any depressed person reading this comment

I can second that, my first boss (excluding family cats before I went to Uni and later had my own place) helped me through some bad spots¹ by just existing and being pleased to see me. On days I would otherwise have hibernated, getting up to make sure she had breakfast and a clean tray meant I was up and that made doing something with the day for myself much easier. She was one of my key constants through the ups & downs. And after a bad day at work, being purred at is wonderful, as was just playing around with a thing-on-a-string for her entertainment. I went a bit odd(er) during the covid lockdowns, I would have no doubt dealt even worse with the “stir-crazy” thing without her company.

> with even just a modicum of income.

Though if you only have “a modicum”, I strongly recommend pet insurance.

Gayle was taken two years ago, after ~12.5 years as my boss, by an aggressive case of lymphoma. The diagnosis and treatment for that² cost a goodly chunk of money. I was in a position to handle that financial hit without worry, but someone working minimum wage with few savings would have had little choice but to euthanise considerably sooner to avoid a drawn-out painful end without actually properly knowing what was wrong.

A couple of months after Gayle, I adopted an elderly pair (10 years each) from a local rescue. I wasn't quite ready, but the heartstrings were pulled as they'd been there for months with no interest because of their age and how shy they were, they didn't do well in the rescue & foster environments. Max (the shyest of the two) took quite some time to properly settle in and feel safe, but has since become a most affectionate companion (I am sometimes headbutted & massaged to within an inch of my life!). He unfortunately has developed a minor heart condition and had a little trouble with his waterworks³, again nothing that I can't afford to deal with but that someone living closer to their means might struggle to manage.

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[1] FYI: I am <checks official bit of paper> “prone to bouts of bipolar behavioural activity” and have been suffered from burn out.

[2] Palliative care was the only practical option really, the prognosis was such that anything else would likely have had little effect on the outcome and would have just served reduced her QoL in her final months due to vet stress and side effects.

[3] neither uncommon in older males, cats and humans alike!

Good advice.

I’ll just add the little asterisk: be aware that the more a pet is “pure race” the more they will suffer from in-breading issues.

Expensive instagrammable cats generally come with expensive doctor bills.

Purebred dogs are nothing but veterinary bills. Cats slightly less so, but still far worse than a mixed breed.

The best pets I've ever had have been brown dog and orange cat breed.

>in-breading issues

sandwich style

I recommend more than a modicum of income to be actually responsible. I’ve had a dozen or so mixed breed cats in my life to date. Cancer, diabetes, kidney failure, liver failure, dementia, and FIP have claimed about half of them, with huge medical bills to match. A cat on the street usually dies violently and suddenly, but when you take one in, that includes caring for it in old age too. Cats (and no living animal) is fire-and-forget pet ownership.
Cancer, diabetes, kidney failure, liver failure, dementia, and FIP would all kill a cat on the street, too. It's not irresponsible to give them a sudden, nonviolent death in these cases. It could be argued that spending a lot of money just to keep them alive is selfish. I can give a cat a better life than it would have on the street using a modicum of income, and responsibly not spend a lot of money just to let them suffer should the reaper come knocking.
This tantamount of "using" a pet to improve your life than genuinely care for them. What could happen is once you improve your life, you may slowly start detaching from it and throw out. That special bond may not form, if you only buy/adopt because you are depressed.
In that case, you're not using an animal to improve your life. At most, you're forcing yourself to look a bit outwards and focus your energy on an animal, in other ways put strain on yourself.

Most pets love you unconditionally back, as long as you don't abuse & neglect them knowingly. They will look after you and motivate you to continue having this feeling by looking after yourself, too.

Losing a loved pet can leave a scar which can last a life time. I still miss my pet bird, which lived for more than a decade, and died peacefully, and brought limitless joy to everyone in the family, by loving, demanding attention and trolling us.

Animals may look simpler than us, but almost all of them know the language of love and care way better than us.

I cannot possibly imagine how you think what I said is tantamount to that. That’s crazy.
Never happens with a cat. Maybe with a dog because they have so much higher upkeep.
The full book is a fantastic read, yet beware that it takes some quite dark turns describing the author's depression at length and it includes some scatological depictions of animal suffering. It's ultimately a tale about grief and so it's peculiar that the cover design gives the impression it's a cute, feel-good story.
Reads like a warm breeze.

The bonds we forge with other animals can bring another source of durable meaning to our lives. Even a brief show of trust from an animal while present in their environment can create a memory that lasts forever.

One of the more pleasant aspects of being human.

I talk with my cat, and the conversation is so fluid that my 5 year old son asked, "Dad, when did you learn to speak cat?" He is multilingual, so I guess he was wondering when he would have "Cat speak" at school or whatever.

I told him I pretend what I think the cat is saying, which seemed a bit if a let down to both of us. But ever since, I realize it's not so much pretending, we really do converse, and it's a pleasure.

My first cat (who just magically arrived in our garden) is only 5 years with us. But it's so cool how you learn to read their body language and noises/sounds so quickly and so well.

I remember, before I had a cat, that cats could be so unpredictable. A good friend of mine had a cat that loved to be pet, but could claw you a millisecond later. Now, after owning one, I can read their faces, ears, tail and other cues. I'm sure I could have read that cat better now.

I converse with mine too. He replies with a positive prrr or yell if he agrees. If he's not interested in what I'm offering, he will look disinterested. I love him to bits.

lmao I think this is cat/human interactions for sure; that said, it's easy to assume cats only talk in simple terms, like food or complaining about food.
Ha, I know just the nerdy factoid to trot out to legitimize the frontpage placement. Brace:

These little cat-human conversation pieces embedded within remind me enormously of the telepathic conversations in Alfred Bester's mighty genre classic The Demolished Man and their special typesetting.

https://speculativerhetoric.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads...

https://universesofthemind.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/wp...

Also employed in The Stars My Destination. Criminally underappreciated writer.
Is he really criminally underrated if My Stars the Destination features in just about every "best scifi books" list I've ever read? Maybe not as high up as it deserves on those lists but that's hardly criminal underappreciation
When I was younger, a little cat appeared on our doorstep. We named him Pew. He’s already 16 years old and has been with me throughout my childhood and adolescence - my whole life. Although he recognized my father as his owner, he is still very much a part of mine. When I started living alone, I adopted another ball of happiness from a shelter. I named her Gadget. I love her insanely, and she loves me back.
This is an pre-publishing excerpt from "Mornings Without Mii", coming out on the 25th.

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374614782/morningswithout...

And that book is a translation of the 1999 Japanese ミーのいない朝.
This is a fabulous example of Japanese storytelling and the translation is rather good, too :)
Yes, it’s interesting how different cultures have such different ways of telling stories (although sometimes that gets a bit muddied with the massive cross pollination between global media).

I once encountered this diagram comparing cultural thought patterns in a Japanese textbook, it comes to my mind regularly https://jellypictu.re/p/8dd73d2c

I would greatly appreciate if you could share the name of the textbook in question. I found the work it cites and am interested to know how others perceive it.

https://www.colby.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Kaplan_CR_1...

Is the suggestion that an English story is told from Point A to Point B, while the other cultures meander in various ways?

This seems confusing to me, as a regular reader of short stories and personal histories and other things in English that, actually, sound very much like this personal history here.

my ex girlfriend found a similarly 'lost kitten' 4 years ago, she gave him a similarly silly name "Pufu". I am allergic to cats, so I was not into it.

we did not work out and she took him with her when she left.

I miss that little bastard so much.

> I miss that little bastard so much.

What about the cat?

Pets can burrow into your heart even when you’re not expecting it
My wife volunteers for a no-kill cat shelter. One night a literal basket of kittens was found on their doorstep. The shelter was already well over capacity, so we became foster "parents" for them. The runt of the litter (whom the shelter had named "Chrome") was terrified and cried constantly. After a week or two, she bonded with my wife, and would cry whenever she was not around, and wanted nothing to do with me. I recall one time when she escaped their play-pen when I was home alone, and clawed the skin off my hand when I had to pick her up and put her back, hissing and crying.

After a month or two, space in the shelter opened up. All her siblings were quickly adopted, but her fearful, shy nature meant she was left behind. So she became our first "foster fail" and we adopted her.

She now likes me just fine (though still not as much as my wife). What I love about her is that she's the perfect work companion. She likes to sit next to me on the couch when I'm working, and puts her paws and/or head in the crook of my arm (unlike our other cat, who seems jealous of my laptop and does his best to prevent me from working).

My wife and I brought two kittens into our lives 16 years ago. The bonds that we forged with those animals were deep. We had to walk one out of our lives in November due to advanced kidney disease. A couple weeks after that, the other one decided that her time had also arrived.

I’m not ashamed to say that I miss them dearly. I weep from time to time. It’s like losing a limb. I can’t imagine ever putting myself through that again.

ᛖᛁᛖᛋ ᛒᚱᛁᚷᚻᛏ,

ᚳᛚᚪᚹᛋ ᛋᚻᚪᚱᛈ,

ᛏᚪᛁᛚ ᚻᛖᛚᛞ ᚻᛁᚷᚻ.

ᚷᚩ ᚳᛖᛖᚾᛚᛁ ᛁᚾᛏᚩ ᚦᛖ ᛘᛁᛋᛏ, ᚩᛚᛞ ᚹᚪᚱᚱᛡᚱ.

ᚠᚪᛚᚻᚪᛚᛚᚪ ᚹᚪᛁᛏᛋ ᚠᚩᚱ ᛁᚩᚢ.

Eyes bright,

claws sharp,

tail held high.

Go keenly into the mist, old warrior.

Valhalla waits for you.

I haven’t lost any pets yet in my conscious age. I’m so scared because I know how much pain it will be for me
I got a cat when I didn't know how much I needed him. He brought structure and joy to my life in a way that really turned it around.

Unfortunately, two years ago he was diagnosed with FeLV+ even though he was an indoor only cat. Today we're having an at-home quality of life consultation as I suspect we'll have to put him to rest in the coming days.

Outside of beating myself up from not doing more for something that is preventable I gave him the very best care both in terms of medical and supportive.

Having this little guy for almost half of my life changed it in such a positive way I support anyone thinking about getitng a cat.

Not gonna lie, when I clicked the link I was expecting a tutorial on how to make a cat Mii on the Wii.

Can’t say I was disappointed after I reset my expectations though.

"What can possibly be said about Miis these days?".

Turns out I was pleasantly wrong.

Animals are amazing, something to hold onto and keep us sane in the coming storm.
That was beautiful. How a single night, a breeze, a cry in the dark can change a life. The smallest moments (ones we don’t plan for) can shape our entire world.
What a beautiful story. Thanks for bringing me out of the High Tech/AI anxiety loop with just a nice human story of beauty and a cat :)
With all the AI nonsense , we've lost track of how good skilled human translators can be. The writing is great, but the translation is masterful
Lovely lovely story. I'll look for the book, and as delusional says, an unexpected charmer to break up a day of tech think.
lil baby