The twelve Animal Signs

for Men

Rabbit (Cat) man
His psychological makeup

The Cat male is essentially an introvert. He needs many more lonely moments than most other men in order to examine his every thought, feeling and move. He is never quite sure whether he behaved well on such or such past occasion - although he knows that he conducted himself as best he could. Keen on analyzing himself endlessly, futilely, he rarely succeeds in escaping a vague feeling of culpability or remorse and tends strongly toward self-chastisement. His moodiness is to him a pleasure and a torment at the same time.

Despite his extreme touchiness - he is very easily hurt - this man exercises effective control over his outward reactions; people who do not know him well find it hard to tell what is going on in his heart as he jealously keeps his feelings to himself. On the other hand, he may be as opinionated as the next person but rarely expresses his ideas and in any case keeps silent when he has nothing really worthwhile to say.

Nothing horrifies him more than disorder and anarchy to which, for all his sense of equity, he would prefer injustice and despotism. A man such as he who is constantly obsessed with harmony cannot tolerate confusion and chaos around him and will not hesitate to roll up his sleeves to help putting things in order. In this way he is sometimes accused of meddling but this does not bother him in the least. In the same vein he hates messiness, unpunctuality, procrastination and waste of time.

This individual has a profound desire to be accepted and liked; rejection is always considered an unbearable disgrace. Yet he is not as sociable as one may expect him to be. He prefers seclusion or a very limited circle of trusted friends to large crowds and loves living all hunched up in the intimacy of his home. A convinced sedentary man, he hates travels and, unless forced by circumstances, shrinks from the idea of adventure. Security and coziness seem to be his greatest concerns in life, and his motto may be the same as that of Cervantes: "You are a king by your own fireside, as much as any monarch in his throne."

Considered under a certain angle, the male of the Cat sign may appear as a virtuous person. Self-improvement is a driving force in him, and he is constantly trying to achieve perfection in all directions.

His sense of justice and fairness is extremely well developed. It is why the Year of the Cat stands for the year during which the reign of Justice is expected to be prosperous. It would be surprising if he ever allowed himself to commit an inequity against someone. He can even go so far as to be gentle, courteous, considerate, loyal and helpful.

He would be justified in priding himself on his honesty, for it is above all suspicion. One can always trust him, no matter how a given situation evolves, and his deeds are never at variance with his words. Cynics may argue that his irreproachable integrity is not a spontaneous moral quality but only a device of his to protect himself from complications and problems. While it is true he needs peace of mind more than anyone else, it must be acknowledged that his conviction, deep as it is, sometimes causes him considerable trouble which could have been avoided with less intransigence.

Patience is yet another of his outstanding qualities. Conscious that "if you wait, there will come nectarlike fair weather" (Japanese proverb), he knows the art and wisdom of biding his time. He is among the few who would continue to tread even though the end of the tunnel is still nowhere in sight.

There is no doubt that his strategy often pays, and to the casual observer he appears to be better favored by life than many other mortals. Paradoxically, however, this man is almost never satisfied with his lot. He has somehow acquired the conviction that he deserves a better treatment by life which, in his unwarrantable opinion, has been particularly severe and unjust toward him. No amount of reasoning is likely to make him adopt a less pessimistic and biased view. Self-pity acts on him as a kind of dope, and it would be no easy business to cure his addiction.

Not only fond of self-analysis, the Cat male delights in dissecting people and situations of any description. His analytical mind will not be at rest so long as it has not broken any subject under study down to the barest terms and cast all necessary light on it. He is therefore reputed as a meticulous, accurate and methodical man - but also as a hair-splitting maniac who often does not see the forest for the trees.

No one probably knows human nature better than he does; it is why he is basically a disillusioned and cynical fellow - although these traits are fairly well concealed under an affable exterior. He is barely surprised at people's erratic behavior and can, for instance, shrug off ingratitude with perfect ease as he considers it a sheer matter of course.

The native has a strong taste for reading - he reads very fast - and tireless intellectual curiosity. He diligently collects information in the most varied fields of knowledge, delving as deeply as he can into every subject. With his profound and encyclopedic culture, he appears as a brilliant mind. But those who come into contact with him are often irritated at his pedantry; he indeed does not resist his urge to display his erudition by making involved discourses and tackling serious topics every time he has an opportunity to talk, even when a light conversation is called for. Modesty, obviously, is not his forte. Having an exaggerated opinion of his own intellectual value, he detests being contradicted or criticized - although he delights in squabbling and pulling people's legs. We can find here one of his major failings. It is not easy to carry on discussions with him on an equal footing as he is exceptionally adroit, elusive, eloquent and persuasive.

In spite of his outward affability, the Cat man does not live up to his reputation as a likeable person. Basically, this is an egoist and a maniac. He hates anything liable to disturb his quiet life or ingrained habits. He is obsessed by the easy, bourgeois way of life, with its luxury and pleasures. His personal interests are all to him, and he deliberately closes his eyes on the great wrongs of the world - war, famine, floods and other scourges of mankind leave him perfectly indifferent so long as he is not a victim himself. He generally serves no other cause than that of his own security and comfort. However, under exceptional circumstances, he may sometimes surpass his solid egoism and show a fair degree of devotion and altruism.

Another of his main shortcomings is his mawkishness in which he revels endlessly. A man though he is, he can be moved to tears without too much difficulty and is barely ashamed of his morbid sentimentalism. A great lover of melodrama, he has a special predilection for stories with a tragic ending and likes to treat himself to doomed destinies and hopeless situations. His bathos, as can be expected, constitutes a barrier on his way to true happiness by undermining his willpower. He is well advised to fight against this tendency, preferably with a psychoanalyst's help, before he becomes too weak to react with efficaciousness.