The strategic brilliance of cats
When you have ten (and soon to be eleven cats) in your life, every day is a learning day.
They wait, watch, and only move when the opportunity is right, motionless until the perfect moment to strike.
Ambush predators, they’re smart, conserving their energy until it truly matters. It was a proud day when I watched our Billy (not a small boy) go from furry purry reclining Buddha to total weapon and eliminate in mere seconds a mouse that had dared to show its face in our Amsterdam apartment. Cats know that strategy is about deliberate, focused energy, not frenzied, wasteful activity.
They investigate every corner, scent, and sound. Their world is built from exploration. No cupboard, draw, box, bag, nook, attic, or cranny has gone uninvestigated.
No vulnerable glass jar, unguarded ornament, or thoughtlessly placed pen has not been knocked off the table by these jokers just to see what happens. Cats know that strategy begins with curiosity, exploration, testing possibilities, finding out what the envionment has to offer, trial and error.
For some of them, this is their third overseas move.
They’ve gone from a small city apartment with no outside space, to a large apartment city with a balcony and a view, to a small, quiet apartment, to a house in the country with room outside to roam. Each and every time, they’ve adapted with grace and enthusiasm, locating the best places to hide, or nap, working out where shade and sunshine are to be found, identifying high ground and the best vantage points. Cats know that strategy deploys adaptability, using context to gain advantage.
They never half-do anything. Whether they’re playing, hunting, resting, observing, or grooming they’re fully there. They don’t try and multitask. They live in the immediate, responding with full attention to whatever is before them, rather than dividing their focus. To watch a cat is to see focus embodied: a creature utterly where it is, unburdened by past or future. Cats know that strategic success requires presence, situational awareness, and focus.
They’re gloriously self-directed, guided by instinct and confidence rather than seeking the approval of us humans, They’ll accept care and affection, but never control.
Anybody who mindlessly repeats the hand me down stereotype that cats are “selfish” creatures doesn’t know the difference between aloofness and independence; between manipulation and communication in another language; and between selfishness and self-sufficiency.
But cats don’t care about what we don’t know. They know that strategy thrives on conviction and discerning independence, not consensus.
We were ‘gifted’ earlier this year with the suprise of kittens. They’re hostile fuckers with bad attitudes, but they’re still more fun than watching TV.
The golden hour is their play-fighting time. Of course it’s not just for fun and blowing off steam. It’s about building real skills - stalking, pouncing, and targeting… the groundwork for real-world hunting. They know that strategic play (aka fucking about) is the necessary prepearation and rehearsal for strategic performance.
A rescue, one of our boys is fully blind. And yet you really would not know it. I’ve watched him on summer afternoons patiently stalk and catch flies. Curious and utterly fearless, he relies on his whiskers, hearing, smell, and his memory to navigate the world. And climb trees. He teaches us every day that there is no such thing as being disabled - just differently abled.
Cats like Frodo understand that strategic decisions don’t need perfect information, just that we make the most of we have.
There’s a lot of sleeping in our household. A full twelve to sixteen hours of it every day.
In the wild, hunting is energy-intensive: it requires stealth, explosive speed, and sharp reflexes. To sustain this, cats evolved to conserve energy in long rest periods between these short bursts of intense activity. While we provide them with bowls of food, they still carry this blueprint and the ancient wisdom in their bones. They know that restoring cognitive clarity and readiness is vital for decisive strategic action.
Patience and timing, curiosity and exploration, improvisation and adaptability in new environments, economy of effort, presence and focus, independence not conformity, play as necessary preparation, sensing beyond the obvious, rest as renewal… I was going to close by suggesting that cats can teach us so much about the strategic mindset. But as I type this I find myself reflecting that cats can teach us so much about the art of living.