There's something quietly subversive here—Freud, the man who industrialized self-examination, is suggesting that not all time needs to justify itself through productivity or analysis. He's not sentimentalizing cats so much as he's endorsing a kind of purposeful idleness, the sort that lets the mind wander where it will. A therapist knows that some of our best insights arrive not during strained effort but during the small reprieve of stroking a warm animal, when we're no longer performing for anyone. That recognition matters especially now, when we measure our days in tasks completed.