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For 14 years and two days, Merlin has been the undisputed sovereign of my household. But this regal feline’s long reign ended Sunday afternoon. The king is dead.

I already had a houseful of cats and dogs in 2008. The last thing I needed was one more. But the beautiful stray cat who spent time all over my neighborhood was spending more and more time on my porch.

The woman I was dating at the time named him Merlin because of his full white beard that that made him look like a wise old wizard.

On Nov. 18, 2008, the weather turned cold in Birmingham and the low was heading below freezing that night. I brought Merlin inside to protect him against the cold. I didn’t intend to keep him — but he never left.

The other cats loved Merlin. They deferred to him, not out of fear, but as though they owed him respect and obedience. From the very beginning, he was their king. And so began the 14 years during which he ruled over them all — and he was loved by all of us.

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You might have seen this cartoon dog and these flames before. The artwork has become popular on “memes” which satirize people who are oblivious — or in denial — that their world is falling apart around them.

I feel like the little cartoon dog. I feel as though the world is on fire around me. The economy seems to be collapsing. The political system is in a dangerous shambles. The broader culture is a dysfunctional cesspool which is driven by idiots who are out of touch with reality.

But it’s not just the broader outside world. My own life is burning down, at least by the standards of what I expected and what I wanted — and even by the vision of what I believe is possible for my life.

I’m sitting here passively — in the metaphorical sense — and I’m watching the chaos play out all around me. I’m not doing anything about it because I haven’t figured out how to fix everything. I keep functioning as though everything is normal.

But inside, I am painfully aware that this is not fine. Something has to change.

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I was honored to be the guest Friday night on the YouTube livestream of Aya Katz. The link is embedded below, but I also encourage you to check out some of her other videos.

In our wide-ranging conversation, we talked about my experiences in politics but we spent most of our time trying to find some sense of how best to change the world around us. I argue that art has the best chance of changing the culture — and thus changing the political establishment — but Aya is less optimistic that we can change the world in this way.

Who’s right? We might not know for years, but she’s still trying to prod me toward trying to make more films — which I already know I ought to be doing.

Aya Katz is linguist, primatologist, writer and artist. She has a PhD in linguistics and also has a law degree, which allowed her to practice law in Texas for nine years. She has a human daughter, but in many of her videos, you can see her chimpanzee named Bow, who lives with her. You can find her YouTube channel here and her novels and non-fiction works on Amazon here.

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