What is the Nature of Pain?

I asked myself this question when I was feeding the cat today. Socks has a plaintive and pitiful meow when he's hungry. However, he always seems to get hungry before his food dish is empty. Sometimes he won't be satisfied with dry food, and he insists on wet food, which I started buying for him as an occasional treat. Whether he wants a top-up of dry food, or a new helping of wet food, he makes these awful noises which I cannot resist. He makes me believe in my heart that he is suffering from some immense pain which can only be alleviated by a new serving of food. After this, he takes about two bites, and then he, apparently contented, goes on to do his other catly activities.

This makes me wonder though. What about the poor cats out there in the street who don't have a human around to feed them when they're hungry? Objectively, they must have more pain than my cat. Sometimes they won't be able to find food, and some could even die from hunger. Or possibly from cold during the winter. What is it about my own cat's pain that makes it so intolerable to me, that I have to find a solution immediately?

My cat expresses his pain a lot more than the strays out there. He probably does this because he has learned that it tends to get results. The more pitiful he sounds, the faster I get up from the computer to go and feed him. Still, I can't help but wonder if he really believes that his own pain is so horrible that it necessitates crying out the way he does. I guess he doesn't believe anything, doesn't even think about it. "This is what you do when you feel that funny feeling in your tummy, and after you do it, the big hairless, two-legged kitty gets the food out, and the funny feeling goes away, and I can go sit by the window and watch the birds."

I know too, that there's something about fresh food that's better than food that's been sitting in his dish overnight. Heck, the stuff from the sealed bag smells better even to me. But I also know that he's eaten the stale stuff before. It's not like it's completely inedible. So I can tell that there are degrees to his hunger. If he was really truly starving, the first place he would go would be to his stale food, because at least it's food.

This brings me to humanity. Actually, never mind. I won't talk about humanity, because that's too depressing. I'll just leave this as a blog about my cat.