Jackson the Zen Philosopher

Many of the most terrifying moments of my life have been spent sitting in front of a typewriter or computer staring at a sheet of empty white paper or blank screen waiting for inspiration.

Our little female cat, Jackson, likes to watch me suffer. Or, maybe that’s not true. Maybe she doesn’t really enjoy watching me suffer but is only just curious. She climbs up to the top of the exercise bike next to my desk and watches, like waiting for something to happen.

“Meow,” she says.

“I don’t know what’s going on,” I say.

“Meow,” she says.

For 75 years I’ve been expressing my opinion to anybody willing to listen, starting with my mother like what I wanted for breakfast.

It took me a long time to realize that not many people were interested in my opinion because, after all, they already had their own minds made up.

“Nobody cares what I have to say,” I say to the cat.

“Meow.”

“Nobody loves me! I’m all washed up. Empty. Dry. Old, just hanging around waiting to die.”

“Die?” Jackson asks.

“You know, like at the end and maybe there’s more and maybe not and nobody knows for sure, which has always puzzled me because how can something be made without a purpose… and how can a purpose end.”

“Meow.”

I looked back towards my computer expecting to see a blank white screen. But, instead, it was filled with messages.

“meow meow.”

Jackson jumped down from her perch to scratch in the litter box wondering, maybe, how people got to be so complicated. It was all perfectly obvious to her.