What Pasha taught me about life

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Pasha joined our family when he was barely 2 months old. Shortly after that the Covid-19 quarantine started, and we have spent our lives 24/7 with Pasha.
We are all big fans of Pasha, but I particularly admire him as I am in awe of his approach to life. I fired my life-coach and decided to follow Pasha's teachings instead.

Here are the things I learned from Pasha.

Play hard, rest easy

Pasha has a lot of energy in the mornings. He bounces off the walls, climbs to our curtains, and playfully harasses our wrists and ankles. If we try to snuggle with him in the morning, he runs away, to continue his parkour route around the house.

At 11am, he crashes. He sleeps where he deems fit. If it is sunny, he finds a sunny spot in front of a window. But he also doesn't mind sleeping on the carpet in a busy room, oblivious of the feet traffic in the area.

After his nap, Pasha wakes up, a new cat, refreshed, and does a rinse and repeat.

Resting is important. Some people say work hard, party hard. No, Pasha says "work is play, play hard, and then rest easy." Pasha's philosophy is to embrace the boredom and tranquility, so he can play hard again.

Treat work as play, and play as work

Pasha doesn't differentiate between work and play. He takes his play seriously and not-seriously at the same time. I know this sounds like a zen koan, but let me try to explain. Pasha knows he is playing but he also knows he is training as well. It looks like he is wired to do deliberate practice in his playing/training. He goes the extra length when jumping or stretching even when he knows this is for play, and this is not a real prey he is chasing.

By training hard through his play time (which he observes religiously), he is cultivating essential skills for when they could be needed.

Pasha has intense concentration when playing. I envy this, I wish I could summon my focus as quickly and as intensely as he can. I will be working on this taking inspiration from Pasha.

Pursue your curiosity

Pasha follows his curiosity to the end, undeterred by any obstacles. Scolding him or relocating him to another room doesn't help. If he got interested in finding out about something (e.g., breakfast table, laundry room), he keeps chasing that relentlessly. Yesterday he fell into the toilet bowl, and had to get another bath.

Curiosity kills the cat, but satisfaction brought him back. The thing is we can't get mad at Pasha for the troubles he causes when following his curiosity. It is very apparent that he is wired this way. There is no point in getting angry at him for something outside his control.

I am a curious person, but looking at Pasha I know there is a lot of room to improve in this department. I wish I could be as driven by curiosity as Pasha.

Dance to your own beat

Pasha determines his schedule, and he doesn't let us dictate our schedule on to him. He naps always around the same times. He takes a nap from 11pm to little past midnight in the chair next to me in my study. When I am ready to go to bed, he wakes up without fail. I guess he gets some more sleep during the night, because he is up early in the morning full of energy.

Pasha enjoys life. He looks fully present and content at every moment. He doesn't have high expectations from life, and he can entertain himself. He is definitely handling this quarantine better than us, and probably the life thing as well.

Treasure your family

Pasha is not needy of attention and affection. When we give him affection he welcomes it (only briefly if he is on the prowl), and he doesn't shy back to show his affection. Pasha is very patient with our kids, especially our 5 year old daughter. The reason we didn't get a cat earlier was because we waited for her to grow up more. My daughter can act like Elmyra Duff sometimes, but Pasha tolerates this well, and in fact he shows a lot of affection to her.

Lick Like yourself

Pasha takes a good chunk of time taking care of his hygiene. Even the quarantine could not cause an erosion of his personal care standards. Pasha surely knows how to treat and take care of himself.

Here is Pasha again. He grew up a lot in one month's time.

Closing

Hey, it's my blog, and I can post whatever I like. If you find this post nonsensical, you do you. I learned from Pasha to be indifferent to others' opinion/evaluation.

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