Dangling. Helpless. Fingernails dug deep into the bark of a fragile branch threatening to splinter and snap under the weight of the struggling, desperate body which swings from it - eyes mad with dread, awaiting the inevitability of plummeting, plummeting, into the abyss.

This is a description of the world’s greatest and most celebrated motivational poster.

It’s been hung in the highest halls of Congress and office break rooms everywhere. Millions of prints sold, not counting the various ripoffs, tributes, and copies.

It is Victor Baldwin’s 1964 black and white photo of a siamese kitten barely clinging to a branch of bamboo, milliseconds from falling: a frozen moment of mammalian anxiety.

The poster’s headline?

“Hang In There, Baby!”

Rosie the Riveter, Uncle Sam, and Simmy the Kitten - three images meant to inspire a weary nation.

Rosie’s strong arm poster encouraged us, with the words “We Can Do It!”.

Uncle Sam pointed straight at the viewer, exclaiming their crucial value to the defense of freedom, saying - nay, practically shouting “I Want YOU!”.

But Simmy was silent. She was too busy to speak, she was attempting the impossible, reaching beyond her limits, going into uncomfortable territory, challenging herself. She wasn’t touting confidence, heavens no… she was exhibiting the highest aspiration and deepest vulnerability, allowing you see her effort, experience what was certain to be her failure, and through that, better understand your own dreams and struggles. Simmy gave up her ego to bond us all together, as if she psychically knew there would be throngs of exhausted workers who needed a boost after lunch under florescent tube lights, at formica tables with metal tube chairs which scraped the floor with a din that tears at both ear and soul. She dangles, as WE dangle, with no alternative but to pull ourselves up with all the strength we can muster, or be brave enough to fall into the unknown.

I mean, I’ve taken pictures of my cats, but they just kind of sleep most of the time, and when they do cute things it’s usually too fast to capture on film. Simmy was perfectly safe, by the way, as the photographer loved animals of all kinds, and enjoyed taking photos of his four cats in between shots of such luminaries as Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr.

It is a testament to art that a frozen moment, captured in 1964, can accurately reflect what I felt like yesterday afternoon, and probably tomorrow morning. We are a world dedicated to dire circumstance.

Our “amusement parks” have “thrill rides” that drop us from the sky at terrific speeds. We do that for fun.

A majority of our movies are filled with maniacs, creatures and zombies. We watch those to relax.

Millions have been invested to prove the fatal effects of drink, smoke, and drugs - yet we spend billions to imbibe in them, even though we are clearly aware of this research. We do that to alleviate stress.

And the endless videogames where the predominant point is that people are trying to kill us, with guns or with swords or by giving us spectral cooties as we gobble up little yellow dots. That’s where I finally drew the line, turned my back on conveniently packaged panic and derision: many decades ago when exploring the latest edition of an incredibly popular series I discovered that extra points were given for spectacular cruelty, and just…stopped playing.

“Whaddya do that for?” a competitor asked me. “They ain’t real!”

“Yeah”, I told him, “…but I am.”

If Rosie’s poster was to come to life, she’d just be silently smiling at you, flexing.

Uncle Sam would be a somewhat awkward septuagenarian.

But if little Simmy’s poster sprung into motion it would be… well, a cat video, and you know how awesome cat videos are. Something’s happening in her poster, and something is definitely going to happen.

Simmy’s poster isn’t just a stationary platitude, but a dynamic manifesto: what must be endured yet cannot be sustained can’t last long…time is ever destined to defeat imbalance.

Rather than “Hang In There, Baby!”, the poster should read,

“That looks pretty bad, but it’ll definitely either be better or worse in a minute.”

Or maybe, “…this too shall pass.”

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