Minnie and Flo are barn cats, wild things, killers and hunters, and hermits.

In recent years, they have changed; they seem to love one another and are devoted to keeping each other warm on these chilly transitional days.

The living things on earth are often violent – animals killing one another and other living things all the time to survive. The best I can say for men is that there was a time when they needed to be violent, to fend off killers and conquers, hunt for food, and protect their families.

Nature does not yet seem to have responded to the changes in our lives. Now, men are the danger, not our protection from danger.

Animals don’t change much.

They kill what they need to survive.

We humans seem to kill for many other reasons. And men, by far, make most of the killing.  To be generous, men haven’t yet evolved into kinder and gentler parts of the human species.

They fight now, in many cases to keep women and immigrants and people who are different down and preserve their power.

They still conquer, rape, and dominate as they perhaps were programmed to do.

I see that I won’t live long enough to see men evolve into something more loving and empathetic and peaceful. That makes me sad. What a beautiful world that would be.

It isn’t just men. The most hateful and angry messages I get online are almost always from women. I don’t understand that. I think people are just too disconnected from each other. The Internet brings some together, but it pulls many more apart.

The animals inspire me. Mother Nature was kinder to them than to us in some ways.

They kill when they have to, but I see that they also take care of one another. I’ve seen the barn cats and other animals evolve. I know it’s possible.

The barn cats give me hope.