Cats are absolved from mistakes and faults just inherently. 

Everyone makes mistakes. A day of purrfect ease could be ripped under you in the blink of an eye. You stroll along and suddenly you find that you’ve said the worst thing at the worst time. You never really know yourself until you’re met with the moment where intention and impact accidently miss each other, and all you can do is stand there, replaying it in your head long after the moment has passed. We carry these moments like weights at the gym. We analyze them, assign meaning, and build narratives around them, whether they’re true or not. Our narratives dictate our whole world, and let us decide our thoughts and actions. A single mistake can cost a whole relationship, job, or your sense of self. 

But cats? Cats never feel the shame, the guilt, or the pressure that humans feel. We’re so riddled with lamentations and struggles from the slightest things, while cats could maliciously destroy a prized possession and just go to their couch throne for a nap immediately afterwards. And it’s not that they’re truly malicious, mean, or have ill-intentions. But their whole system of life is built around them – you’re merely the plaything in the corner of their life that feeds them and lets them have the comfort they deserve. Cats live completely unburdened by this internal trial. A cat can knock a glass off the table, stare directly into your soul, and walk away without a shred of remorse. Not because they are careless, but because they do not equate mistakes with identity. The action happens. The moment passes. Life continues. There is no moral residue.

Cats play the victim, they play docile and delicate at the times when they know they’ve done wrong. They look at you with big eyes, airplane ears, and a sense of innocence after they just knocked your keys off the table, broke your favorite mug, and destroyed all the toilet paper on the roll in the bathroom. And what are you to do? You have to just let them do their implicit apology, their feigned sadness, and their adorable manipulation on your heartstrings.