Wednesday Morning Wanderings

"There are no spirits or gods in the cat, don't look for them, Shed.  A cat is the picture of the eternal machinery, like the sea.  You don't pet the sea because it's pretty, but you pet a cat-why?-ONLY BECAUSE HE'LL LET YOU.  And a cat never knows fear-finally- he only winds up into the spring of the sea and the rock, and even in a death-fight he does not think of anything but the majesty of darkness." - Charles Bukowski


Perhaps that last bit is why cats were deemed evil in some places during the Middle Ages.  Cats know their place in the Universe, they walk with confident ease, making self-doubt ridden  humans feel too much like prey.
Perhaps this sense of the "majesty of darkness" is part of what makes "Vincent" in th 1987 TV program "Beauty and the Beast" so compelling.  In Mr. Perlman's portrayal of him we can see the duality of the uncertain, uncomfortable human and the majestic, certain, graceful, but often merciless beast.
A cat, an apex predator, more secure in that role, especially as a protector of what is his, than any human could ever be.
Yet, he has all those human frailties we are all faced with - he knows fear, knows the feeling of longing to belong, but feeling that he does not, knows a fear of a part of himself that seems alien to the rest of humanity, but is it really?  Isn't it only a matter of degree?
In every human heart is the instinct to protect that which we love from harm, and that which we need to survive from being lost.  The major difference is that humans think we need to temper this instinct, and are apologetic about it, at least most of the time.
Cats have no such self-doubts.  They know what they are, they accept the gifts of their strength and grace, and protect what is theirs with compelling ferocity.
It is to Mr. Perlman's and the show's writers great credit that we could see this conflict in Vincent's character.  After all, he is a symbol for what is ultimately a very human struggle:  how to learn to love and accept all of ourselves.  Vincent makes definite progress in this area, but, like most of us, never fully achieves that acceptance of his more instinctual nature.
This question of the duality of his nature has been discussed quite often in fan fiction, and often is handled very well, giving us even more to ponder about the nature of what it really means to be "human."