If Cats Disappeared from the World

by Genki Kawamura

The fact of the matter is, in reality people tend to be surprisingly calm when they hear news like this.

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.”

To live means to cry, to shout, to love, to do silly things, to feel sadness and joy, to laugh, even to experience horrible, frightening things. Beautiful songs, beautiful scenery, nausea, people singing, planes flying across the sky, the thundering hooves of horses, mouthwatering pancakes, the endless darkness of space, cowboys firing their pistols at dawn …

“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.

Again Mom’s words came to me: “In order to gain something, you have to lose something.”

“Yeah, but just being alive doesn’t mean all that much on its own. How you live is more important.”

Humans tend to regret the life they never lived and the choices they never made.”