The Sacrifice of Love to Love

"Oh, I’ll get a beautiful portrait made of my cat dressed in a regal manner because I just love it so much." Well, you might love your cat, but guess what: your cat doesn’t love you. What I mean when I say your cat doesn’t love you is that if your cat woke up tomorrow and found that overnight it had somehow become the size of, for example, a leopard or a jaguar, the first thing it would do would be to slice you right down the middle like a piece of hot dog bread and gobble up your entrails, although I suppose it’s also possible it would toss you around the room for a few minutes beforehand in order to amuse itself with your terror and because delayed gratification is only that much more gratifying. And don’t forget that famous line from The Wizard of Oz: “[A] heart is not judged by how much you love, but by how much you are loved by others.” To put it otherwise, if the Tin Man had been a cat lover, he would have left Emerald City empty-handed.