06-25-2015, 06:48 AM
(This post was last modified: 06-25-2015, 06:55 AM by APeacefulWarrior.)
Guys, I'm sorry, I'm just going off the ratios here. Given that a cat's average lifespan is 15 years, that works out to be more than three hundred million incarnations. Plus, of course, that's only the average for cats kept in captivity and who are well cared-for. The real-world average cat lifespan is undoubtedly much lower, and the number of total lives much higher.
And how much difference do you honestly think 1 life out of 300,000,000 can make, either way?
Granted, they're probably not spending all that time as a cat specifically, but the basic point stands. We are but eyeblinks in the overall length of our pets' 2D existence. That's both the good AND bad part about having such short incarnations (humans too) when dealing with such huge timespans. Any given single life rarely makes that much of a difference in the grand scheme. It's all about slow incremental growth, and lessons learned through reinforcement across many lives.
If you want to feel better about it, consider this: Like I mentioned, the life of a non-domesticated cat is usually brutish and short. Plus a lot of them have pretty crappy owners. If you have a cat (or whatever pet) that you love and treat well, you're giving it a vacation life. A chance to relax and spend most of its time being happy for a change. That probably DOES speed its growth somewhat.
However, the chances of any of us personally "uplifting" a pet are pretty darn low, any way you cut it. Yet it still remains a very nice way of sharing love with other-selves, and contemplating just how hard it must've been for us to get to the level we're at.
(And, of course, the entity currently known as your cat will find its own way back to the Creator, in its own time, as we all do.)
And how much difference do you honestly think 1 life out of 300,000,000 can make, either way?
Granted, they're probably not spending all that time as a cat specifically, but the basic point stands. We are but eyeblinks in the overall length of our pets' 2D existence. That's both the good AND bad part about having such short incarnations (humans too) when dealing with such huge timespans. Any given single life rarely makes that much of a difference in the grand scheme. It's all about slow incremental growth, and lessons learned through reinforcement across many lives.
If you want to feel better about it, consider this: Like I mentioned, the life of a non-domesticated cat is usually brutish and short. Plus a lot of them have pretty crappy owners. If you have a cat (or whatever pet) that you love and treat well, you're giving it a vacation life. A chance to relax and spend most of its time being happy for a change. That probably DOES speed its growth somewhat.
However, the chances of any of us personally "uplifting" a pet are pretty darn low, any way you cut it. Yet it still remains a very nice way of sharing love with other-selves, and contemplating just how hard it must've been for us to get to the level we're at.
(And, of course, the entity currently known as your cat will find its own way back to the Creator, in its own time, as we all do.)