The Black Cat Nobody Wanted
Lessons in Dignity, Grit, and Quiet Defiance
Not every story has a hero’s arc. Some just survive. This is for the ones who weren’t chosen—and still kept going.
The Day I Didn’t Blend In
I didn’t have a driver that day. That meant walking through the gritty seams of Makati, across the fault lines where glass towers taper off into winding alleys and rusted roofs. I knew what to do. I took off my jewelry in the nicer part of town. Swapped heels for slippers. Hid inside an old jacket. When in Rome.
I don’t look Filipino. Not really. But I know how to disappear when I need to.
So I walked, keeping pace with motorcycles and the smell of frying oil, among strangers in flip flops eating outside on monobloc chairs. Then I saw it.
A black and white cat.
It wasn’t pretty. It didn’t look loved. Its fur was patchy, its posture tense like it had learned to dodge kicks. Not feral, just… tolerated.
And I found myself wondering—would I ever choose a cat like that?
The Quiet Ones That Stay Unchosen
The truth is, most people wouldn’t. We want the fluffy white kittens. The ones with Instagram eyes and adoption-worthy charm. We want beauty we can show off. Struggle makes us uncomfortable. Dirt makes us turn away.
But what happens to the lives that don’t get picked?
The cats that don’t purr on cue.
The people born into sickness and cement.
The kids in slippers eating dinner on a curb.
This isn’t one of those stories with a twist ending where the ugly cat gets adopted by a billionaire and lives in Paris. This isn’t about survivor bias. It’s about the ones who don’t make it into stories at all.
Because the truth is: some lives are despised no matter what they do.
Dignity in a World That Looks Away
It’s easy to say, “Just believe in yourself.”
But when you’re told in a hundred subtle ways that you don’t belong, that you’re too dark, too poor, too loud, too strange, too other—that kind of belief takes something else.
Not delusion.
Not toxic positivity.
But a stubborn kind of dignity.
The kind that says:
You may not see me. But I see myself.
You may pass me by. But I will keep walking.
There is poison in the air—criticism dressed up as culture, shame disguised as advice. And it seeps into our thoughts if we’re not careful. But survival, true survival, is not just living. It’s keeping something untainted inside.
A Reminder from the Street
I didn’t adopt that cat. I just saw it.
But sometimes the quietest acts carry the most power.
Noticing what the world tries to erase is a kind of defiance.
And when enough of us choose to see, something shifts.
Some are born in gold. Others build their worth in silence, from scraps, with dignity no one can steal.”
– Vanessa Liu