If Cats Disappeared from the World

by Genki Kawamura

“In order to gain something, you have to lose something,” she always said. People are always trying to get something for nothing. But that’s just theft. If you’ve gained something, it means that someone, somewhere, has lost something. Even happiness is built on someone else’s misfortune. She often reminded me of this. In fact, she considered it one of the laws of the universe.

Love tends to fizzle out over time. And even though everyone knows that, it doesn’t stop anyone from falling in love.

I guess it’s the same with life. We all know it has to end someday, but even so, we act as if we’re going to live forever. Like love, life is beautiful because it must come to an end.

“Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long shot.”

I realized then that when a person talks about something they really love, there’s a kind of thrill to listening to them.

It’s the future you’ll never get to see that you really regret missing most of all when you die.

What did I gain by growing up, and what did I lose? I know the answer to only the second part of that question. Innocence—all those precious hopes and dreams that you can only have when you’re in your adolescence.

If my life were a movie, I’d want it to be memorable in some way, no matter how modest the production was. I’d hope it would mean something to someone, somehow.

“You only realize what the really important things are once you’ve lost them.”

With freedom comes uncertainty,

insecurity, and anxiety. Human beings exchanged their freedom for the sense of security that comes from living by set rules and routines—despite knowing that they pay the cost of these rules and regulations with their freedom.

You don’t have a family. You make a family.

cats are no different from the sun or the ocean or the air we breathe.