I am a cat. As yet I have no name.

Had I the time to keep a diary, I’d use that time to better effect; sleeping on the veranda.

said the cat, narrator of Sōseki Natsume's book "I am a cat".

So maybe I should do the same and better sleep

than write this blog,

but well lately I feel like I am growing old and forgetting lots of things.

I feel the big fear of forgetting.

Seeing all my knowledge, books, movies,

disappearing from my memories...

So lately... I read "I am a cat". 

Situated in Meiji period,

the time of Japan's westernisation.

The story written through the eyes of cat.

Cat looking at humans and their senseless, ridiculous

behaviour with an irony, sometimes even the feeling of superiority.

I said "the story" but in fact there is no story there. Just some daily occurrings.

Impressions. Talks. Day by day without any goals. Meaning.

Like the cat's owner who buys books without reading a single one.

Sometimes he even takes them to a bedroom to just put them on a nightstand.

Thus, as I review the list of my friends and acquaintances, 

most of them emerge as stained with maniac stigmata of one sort or another. 

I begin to feel considerably reassured. 

The truth may simply be that human society is no more than a massing of lunatics.

A massing of lunatics.

They wake up. They eat. They go to work. They meet.

They talk nonsense. They grind balls.

They start something and leave to start something new.

Even all academic discourse is recognised with all its nonsense.

They just desperately try to avoid boredom.

They escape from time which could make them think about all absurdity of their existence.

"I am a cat" is the story both about the absurdity of human existence in general.

But also there is a strong motif of Japanese situation in Meiji period.

The period of blind coping European culture and customs.

An especially interesting motif is the fear of individualism

strongly incorporated from Western culture.

The strong focus on me, my thoughts, my individuality

which can bring a total ununderstanding between humans.

It can even lead to the death of art

as humans would be unable to grasp the values of humans

thinking differently from them.

There is some king of loneliness in it.

Loneliness of humans who can not understand each other.

Friends, families, academic circles- it is all a phantom

which do not have any reflection in reality.

There is only me. My mind. My life.

Nothing more.

The scariest think is that in fact this ME

does not have any sense.

This ME is just in the middle of a pursuit of losing itself.

To forget boredom. To forget that is does not lead anywhere.

That maybe better it would be to sleep on veranda.

It is not an encouragement to do nothing

but to stop for a while. To think.

To forget about themsvelves and individuality put it the centre

which leads people to be lunatics, awkwardly wandering in darkness.

There are people doing absurd to loose boredom.

There are people doing things to show the meaning of their existence and individuality.

And how about just stoping for a while...

Not to loose something, not to show something.

Just like that. To find peace. Harmony.

Just like a cat sleeping on a veranda.

Cat who seems to be the smartest character in all this story.

Even though he has not got any name yet...

In the old days, a man was taught to forget himself. 

Today it is quite different: 

he is taught not to forget himself and he accordingly spends his days and nights in endless self-regard. Who can possibly know peace in such an eternally burning hell?