Tag Archives: culture

What you sow, you reap.

       You should be more careful with your thoughts and actions Mr Midnight. Craftily sneaking up behind me while I cat-nap to finsih the last drops of milk out of my saucer is very cheeky. I believe it´s called “stealing”.

       I`m just following my natural instincts Sir Winston.

       I suppose there´s nothing wrong with that; although all souls reap what they sow in life you know.

       To tell you the truth, I had already noticed that. My greedy appetite got the better of me.

I should know better really, what with having studied the human race for so long, but after all, I am only a small, little pussy cat.

      It´s a shame the humans are not more switched on to how their actions (and thoughts)  effect the world they live in.  I don´t really like to say it but I thought humans were more intelligent than us pussy cats.

They appear to find it just as hard to accept such a fact, as we do.

      Possibly because like me, they just follow their natural instincts.

Perhaps humans are not supposed to live respectfully with one another. Perhaps humans need to suffer with which to experience life. Perhaps humans are still not aware of the TRUE meaning of love.

Such notions would certainly explain modern, human behaviour.

       Well, as I´ve already mentioned, we´re no better are we.

       But we do not pretend to be something of which we´re obviously not.

Power and money often seem to be the prime motivator for many human activities.

I´m terribly confused as to why human beings appear to believe that they are respectful, loving and generous when there are so many tragedies and suffering in our world, rapid environmental change issues and so much deep resentment towards other cultures within our societies.

What we sow is what we reap.

       That´s perhaps why so many countries on our planet are struggling with their finances. Bad energy is generated when countries invent legislature that is against humanism. Governments make their actions legitmate by calling it “the law” but their modus operandi is not necessarily correct and humanistic.

If one cons people, then one will be conned as well. If we give from the heart, then we will receive from the heart. That is the law of attraction.

       I cannot promise anything Sir Winston, but in future, I will certainly try to not steal any more milk from you, otherwise I suspect you´ll steal my milk.  🙂

       We both wish you humans all the best with your endeavours to become even better human beings.

With love from Sir Winston and Mr Midnight.   🙂

 

xx

 

(C) Copyright MAGS 2019

 

Jingle Bells, animal style.

       The three of us want to wish all of you a very merry Christmas and a Happy New Year 2019!

We especially wish to thank all of those kind people who have followed our blog over the past year and Mr Midnight, Sir Winston and myself really love to receive your comments!

Thank you so much for your support and patience with our topics.

As a little treat, Mr Midnight and Sir Winston thought it would be nice if they showed you a short Christmas video they managed to find while trawling the internet.

They both said that all animals want to wish human beings a very nice festive season, although Mr Midnight pointed out that most animals haven´t really got a clue as to what Christmas is all about. Animals don´t really need Christmas, he said, but it´s nice for animals to observe humans being a bit kinder and happier with one another.

Here´s the link:-  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRzhd3eUyO8

(You may have to “copy and paste” into the browser)

 

See you all hopefully, next year!

Copyright (C) MAGS 2018

What´s the purrrpose?

       I´ve asked you this question once before Sir W. but I´ve gone and forgotten again.

What do you think is the purrrpose of our existence on the planet?

       I think I´m here this time around to simply look after you Mr Midnight.

       Well, that´s quite nice because I thought exactly the same; that is, not that I came here to look after myself but to take care of you.

I believe we cats are quite good at taking care of things.

Let´s ask daddy what he thinks about his purrrpose in being here. Purrrhaps he´ll say that he´s here to look after us two. That would be quite nice wouldn´t it Sir Winston.

Daddy, what do you think is the purrrpose of your existence?

       I´m not quite sure Mr Midnight. Perhaps I´m here with which to gain further experience for some future life.

       That sounds quite plausible for my ears. Gaining experience is always a necessity if our souls are to progress.

       And you really believe that human beings will believe in such a notion Sir Winston?  I suspect that the majority of human beings living in our neck of the woods would appear to believe in something quite different.

        Quite true Mr Midnight, but there are some people dotted around the planet who share a similar concept to ours.

       Well, nobody really knows do they? If we did keep coming backwards and forwards then we all seem to forget so easily. I wonder why we cannot remember anything about our previous lives.

       Purrrhaps our minds are going. In my opinion, some people seem to have already lost their minds, but I´m only speaking as a cat and am therefore, a little biased towards human observation.

       There must be a purpose for our existence.

      Why?

Do we really have to have a purrrpose?

       I think we must have a purpose because otherwise, life wouldn´t make much sense to me.

       Purrrhaps a purrrpose for our existence is to simply have fun and to enjoy our experience.  That´s why I love feeding time. That cat milk daddy dished up the other night was super-dooper.

       Drinking nice milk is perhaps a reason to exist Mr Midnight but whatever the reason for our existence, we should all try and make the best of our short stay on this wonderful planet of ours.

       Okey dokey! I´m heading straight for the kitchen.  It looks like daddy´s going to make my life even more pleasant.

       Who mentioned anything about feeding time just yet?  I certainly didn´t.

       You know how easily Mr Midnight gets confused daddy.

       OK boys. I will make your existence even nicer.

       Goody, goody!

 

(C) Copyright MAGS 2018

 

 

Where are the positive role models?

       I love sitting here on my favourite step in the garden. It´s such a pleasant day and the air angels smell really, really nice. What a wonderful kingdom I live in.

Oh, hello Sir Winston, nice to see that you are also up and about on this fine, warm day.

       Well, I am not really “up and about”; I am more like “lying down and about”.

       You do have a funny way with words Sir Winston, but it´s nice to see you still have your humour in place. Humour is the medicine of life.

In a way, you are a bit of a role model for me Sir Winston because no matter what the situation, you tend to enlighten me with your humour. You never seem to lose your humour.

As for me, I tend to get easily frustrated when things don´t go my way. Still, no cat´s purrrfect are they!

       Well, as you are aware, I do have many faults . . . . .

       . . . . . like when you “accidentally” drank all of my milk out of that saucer thing the other day?

       Sorry about that Mr Midnight, I couldn´t help myself and if it is of any help, I did feel rather bad about it afterwards.

       I should jolly well hope so!  Still, let bygones be bygones, eh? 🙂

       I`m glad you still like me Mr Mr Midnight, and admitting that I am sometimes a kind of positive role model for you pleases my heart.

Do you think there are any positive role models left in the human world Mr M. ?

       From my observations – I very much doubt it.

I suppose daddy could be seen as being a role model for me, but I don´t think that would count would it? It would be a little biased and making him my role model just because he strokes me and opens those wonderful tins everyday for me doesn´t count either I suppose.

Public figures who also, happen to be positive role models are very rare these days Sir Winston.

       I thought exactly the same Mr M.  It´s a shame isn´t it. I feel a society needs positive role models. The human world appears to be saturated with lies, fake stuff and greed. There must be a few people out there who are still interested in proper values.

       Oh, I´m sure there are Sir Winston, but they are just very difficult to find. Naturally, nobody is going to openly admit that they occasionally stoop as low as to lying, faking or being greedy, but that in my opinion, is where things start as to being a positive role model. Being truthful to oneself.

I suppose it´s only human (and catly) to occasionally do things we would sooner not but at least we should acknowledge the fact and not pretend that we are all little angels.

       Of course we are all little angels. The angels live in our souls.

       Yes, I know, we all have goodness within us. We should just let it shine more often.

       Well, I think that there are not many positive role models left simply because we all tend to want to live conveniently and are rather lazy.

       Perhaps the humans have observed us pussycats for far too long.

       That could be a contributing factor. But seriously Mr Midnight, I think that it is much easier for our present society to focus their attentions on lower energies and values than it is to look up, and focus, on positive role models. To orientate oneself on a positive role model may require hard work and initiative if one it to achieve the same high standards. It is much easier to attain low standards.

       I don´t like your patter but you could be correct in your assessment Sir W.

I suppose at the end of the day, the individual can only choose if they wish to positively form their character or not. As for me, I believe it is well worth while. Acquiring positive values and displaying them in public is indeed, a rarity, which makes one stand out in the crowd.

Thank you for being a positive soul for me to attain better standards Sir Winston.

       Please, please Mr Midnight, don´t make me blush!     🙂

(C) Copyright MAGS 2018

 

Change

I find that Saturday afternoon has always been something special to me. Although I have always worked Saturday mornings, when I get home in the early afternoon, there always appears to be some kind of magic in the air. Perhaps it´s the knowledge that the “working week” has finished for me and I have a few days ahead; or perhaps it has something to do with the fact that I can now take my time attending to my many household chores with the conservative knowledge that Sunday will be the day of rest (at least in our part of the woods!).

Such an afternoon had once again, crept up on me, and I had decided that I would go into the garden to dig up a piece of the lawn in which to make a flower bed and plant a few small bushes.

       What on earth is going off daddy. You´re ruining our little patch.  Are you allowed to just go and change our kingdom like that?

       I thought I would make the garden a bit more interesting. You´d have another area in which to sit.

       Well, I was quite fond of our green kingdom as it was. I know the garden off by paw – what with its many pleasant smells and adorable features.

Now it´s going to be different – AGAIN!

       What´s he up to now Mr Midnight?  The kingdom looks a right mess. It was all nice and pretty before daddy got his botanical gadgets out of the shed.

       Boys please! I thought I would tidy the garden up a bit and make it a bit more attractive for you.

       I bit more attractive?  It looks a right mess.

       I have just started Mr Midnight. I know it doesn´t look much at the moment, but if you would try to be a little bit more patient, it will look a lot better in a couple of hours.

       But why put all the time and effort into it daddy? It looked fine before you started. The green kingdom has always looked how it has. I liked it as it was before.

       Don´t you feel we could do with a little change sometimes Sir Winston?

       Change?  A cat who wants “change” must be ill somehow.  We cats are not so keen on change.

       I can vouch for you Sir Winston. Why change something when you´ve got used to something? It´s nice keeping things just as they are.

       Well, I am quite aware that the modern human race has a big problem with “change” and adapting to new environments but I never thought you two would adopt such a stance.

I am only attending to this small piece of garden. It´s not going to change your lives. You never know, in a few weeks you may even like what I have done.

       We´ll see daddy. We´ll see.

       You carry on then. You can´t leave it like it is. It looks terrible. What will Mr Dog from next door think?

       I´m sure Mr Dog will be over the moon when I have finished. Unlike you two, he´s very flexible to adaption.

Life is always on the move and never stays put, so a small change in the garden isn´t going to do any harm.

We´ll see how you like it when the garden is in full bloom. I think you´ll be surprised if you accept “change” as a chance for something better.

(C) MAGS 2018

The changing weather

       We´ve been having quite a bit of snow these last few weeks, haven´t we.

       I´m not too keen on all that white stuff. It´s so terribly cold underfoot.

       I´m quite fond of it myself. It looks so very pretty and it appears that nature slows down, or even falls into a deep sleep. I love sleeping.

       I suspect you don`t mind the white stuff because you don´t have to shift it all in the morning, Sir Winston. That´s daddy´s job.

       Snow is all part and parcel of living in the Black Forest in winter but to tell you the truth, my British roots prefer a life without all this snow.

       Why do they make it all white daddy?  Is it because they want to make our world appear pretty again?

       “They” make it snow simply because that´s how our weather system works Mr Midnight. When at the right temperature, moisture in the air turns into snow.

       Weather systems are changing all the time Mr Midnight. I find that things are getting more dramatic as the years go by.

       That must be because of the humans. They love faffing about with everything and one reaps what one sows.

       Some of us humans believe the changing weather has nothing to do with human existence.

       You could have fooled me!  🙂

       I believe it has something to do with the natural behaviour of our planet and catylistic attitudes and lifestyles of the human race.

       I think that most of us humans are aware that climate change is moving at a rapid pace, but because we are humans, the individual believes that he/she cannot do anything about it.

If applying such a mentality, it becomes obvious that our futures are going to change quicker than most of us want to believe.

       Us cats just look after ourselves. I thought you humans were a little cleverer than our cat philosophy.

If you all made a slight effort to rectify your lifestyles then future generations would also have a chance to enjoy this wonderful planet.

       I´ll not give up. I still have hope.

       Some of us humans are getting to grips with the climate situation and although it´s a hard and difficult path, I do believe we will get there in the end. Afterall, anything with a value is worth fighting for.

(C) Copyright MAGS 2018

Intolerance, authoritarianism and nationalism

It was a wet sunday afternoon and Mr Midnight, Sir Winston and myself had decided to go upstairs into the study to make a comfortable afternoon. I made a fresh cup of my favourite darjeeling (Steinthal First flush) and then went upstairs with my two lads close behind. After a while, our topic of conversation turned to a topic which was becoming more and more prominent every day in the world news.

Here is a jist of our conversation:-

       I don´t understand it all. So much victimhood and dissatisfaction uncontrollably seems to spread around the “modern” world like a mad virus.

       I think that´s partly due to the new craze of the times.  That crazy thing called Nationalism.

       There´s lots of information here in these books daddy about your human thing called Nationalism.

I think Nationalism is an evil.

It causes wars, its roots lie in xenophobia and racism, it is a recent phenomenon – an invention of the last few centuries – which has been of immense service to demagogues and tyrants but to no one else.

       Quite true Sir Winston. Disguised as patriotism and love of one´s country, it trades on the unreason of mass psychology to make a variety of horrors seem acceptable, even honourable.

       I see what you  mean daddy.  Here´s an example:  if someone said to you, “I am going to send your son to kill the boy next door”, you would quite rightly hotly protest. But let him seduce you with  “Queen and Country!”, “The Fatherland!”, “My Country right or wrong!” and you will find yourself permitting him to send all our sons to kill not just the sons of other people, but other people indiscrimanately – which is what your bombs and bullets do.

It´s a mad, mad world out there!

       Look daddy in this book. That not very nice gentleman, Mr Hitler, once said, “The effectiveness of the truly national leader consists in preventing his people from dividing their attention, and keeping it fixed on a common enemy”.

       That man was truly off his rocker wasn´t he. How ill can one get.

       Here´s a quote from Goethe who once remarked that nationalistic feelings “are at their strongest and most violent where there is the lowest degree of culture”.

       That Mr Goethe was a smart fellow wasn´t he.

       But he also proves that nationalistic tendencies are not only a sign of our present times because he died quite a few years ago.

       Nationalists take certain unexceptionable desires and muddle them with unacceptable ones.  We individually wish to run our own affairs; that is unexceptionable.  Most of us value the culture which shaped our development and gave us our sense of personal and group identity; that too is unexceptionable. But the nationalist persuades us that the existence of other groups and cultures somehow puts these things at risk, and that the only way to protect them is to see ourselves as members of a distinct collective, defined by ethnicity, geography, or sameness of language or religion, and to build a wall around ourselves to keep out “foreigners”.

It is not enough that the others are other; we have to see them as a threat –  at the very least to “our way of life”, perhaps to our jobs, even to our daughters.

       Your human idea of nationalism suggests that of a “nation”. The word is meaningless: all “nations” are mongrel, a mixture of so many immigrations and mixings of people over time that the very idea of ethnicity is largely comical, except in places where the boast has to be either that the community there remained so remote or disengaged, or so conquered, for the greater part of history, that it succeeded in keeping its gene pool “pure” ( a cynic might say “inbred”).

       I do hope you humans get your act together because we all, even little pussy cats, have the same basic wishes in life; namely to live in peace and be loved.

       I´m going down stairs now to get another cuppa. All this stuff about nationalism on a Sunday afternoon has dried my mouth out.

       I couldn´t agree with you more daddy. Our topic this time round is very dull and dry. I think  I will join you and have a large bowl of milk.

       I´m all up for that, but before we go, allow me to quote some wise words from a Mr George Bernard Shaw.

He said; “Patriotism is, fundamentally, a conviction that a particular country is the best in the world because you were born in it….”

His words certainly make me think!

 

(C) Copyright MAGS 2017

* This article was based on an extract from the book “The Meaning of Things” by A C Grayling.