You Should Acquire a Cat

“For concentration,” I said, “you need a cat. Do you happen to have a cat?”

So I passed him some very good advice that if you want to concentrate deeply on some problem, you should acquire a cat. Alone with the cat in the room where you work, I explained, the cat will invariably get up on your desk and settle placidly under the desk-lamp. The light from the lamp, I explained, gives a cat great satisfaction. The cat will settle down and be serene, with a serenity that passes all understanding. And the tranquility of the cat will gradually come to affect you, sitting there at your desk, so that all the excitable qualities that impede your concentration compose themselves and give your mind back the self-command it has lost. You need not watch the cat all the time. Its presence alone is enough. The effect of a cat on your concetration is remarkable, very mysterious.

— Muriel Spark, A Far Cry from Kensington