Inoculation (or: I’ve Figured Out Cats!)

Our taste buds are designed to benevolently guide us to palatable food, and away from foods that harm us.

Yes, they do entice us toward sugar and fat. But that's because calories - jesus, any calories at all! - were helpful once, back when we were starving cavemen in grasslands. Less so now while sedentary in offices, but they haven't caught up. Our taste biology is due for an upgrade rendering potato chips unpalatable (I just legit micro-panicked).

Bitterness, for example, signals foods toxic to humans. So why do we enjoy bitter stuff like IPA, dark chocolate, and gin-and-tonics?

It's because a harmless dose of The Bad Thing soothes. It provides psychological inoculation against deep-seated fears, such as death from poisoning. We enjoy nothing more than a deliciously safe taste of death. In fact, the French use the term La Petite Mort ("the little death") in reference to orgasm. Heart-stopping ecstasy is a terrific thing. Hearts actually stopping, not so much. It’s, once again, the magic of low density.

Adventure activities such as rock climbing, snowboarding, or moderating online forums inoculate us, psychologically, against mortality. They're most often explained in terms of ego and victory, though. One "triumphs in tempting death!" But while that's a nice clear image, I don't think it's the best explanation. The truth is more subtle. Again: we inoculate against mortality.

This explains why so many mountain climbers are counter-phobics, having started out with profound fear of heights. I love the concept of counter-phobia. You can fight an engrained phobia so far that you go all the way the other way. It's an easy mistake to make, as it's incredibly hard to detect an arrival point - a reasonable midpoint - while fighting tenaciously into a fierce headwind. So counter-acrophobics support their runwaway process via frequent inoculation. More mountains! More sheer cliffs! More granite!

Saunas and steam baths inoculate against oppressive heat

Comedy inoculates against catastrophe.

Intense competitive sports (as participant or spectator) inoculate against warfare.

Teddy bears are a cute, soft, soothing taste of the scariest possible danger. It's no wonder we have kids sleep with them (me, I sleep next to a crocodile, and, in nightmares, crocodiles never attack me, they rescue me). A harmless dose of The Bad Thing is remarkably soothing.

This brings us to cats. Do I even need to say it? Just look at them! They're a stunted, somewhat-not-really harmless representation of evil. Like teddy bears, they're cute and soft and fluffy. But grownups require more bracing inoculation. A higher tiny dose.

Cats are homeopathic treatment for full-out evil. A hair of the dog that bit you. They inoculate us from the very thing they represent.

We keep cats like primitives keep the shrunken heads of their enemies.