To Kill a Cat

Tonight I was driving home from Ichinomiya (where I go to a gym) on a dark country road. All was quiet except for the Dylan/Cash sessions playing on my stereo. Then all of a sudden I saw a flicker of orange-brown directly to my left and heard a thump. I knew I had killed something, but I didn't know what it was.... So I drove back to look and that didn't help me much because it was all a mess of organs; but I think it was either a cat or a skinny raccoon.

Inadvertently I had become a killer; but I had just eaten some chicken and fish from the convenient store, so I guess I was one well before that.

It reminded me of the inner-contradictions of human life.

Why is that all most people want is to simply feel good and yet they are constantly hurting each other and themselves?

How can a culture that loves nature and animals so much (Japan) so lovingly eat meat all the time, including whale and horse meat? (not to mention those uncomfortable zoos)

Of course these things are barely contradictions rather than merely examples of the convolutedness of human values and actions. The confusion.

I "guess things happen that way" as Johnny Cash might say. I certainly didn't mean to hurt that cat... and I guess I am happy that it didn't probably suffer any pain as death appeared to have come quickly. Just another casualty of the universe's ultimate killer: life.