An Explanation for Cats

Is there a particular reason for cats being like that?
We have a small cat. Her name is bug and she's the smallest cat I have ever seen and she is absolutely adorable

Look at this little jerk she knows she's cute.
Anyway.
This cat doesn't really like it when you pet her. What she does like is having a lap to sit on. In the mornings when no one is awake/in the main living area, she likes to yell until someone comes out of their room to pay attention to her. I mentioned that she likes to yell (and she screams her little lungs out) but she also likes to tear up the carpet by your bedroom door because she realllllllly needs you to pay attention to her and if you don't she decides to eat the carpet. Why does she do this?

This is my sisters cat. His name is Henry. Henry spends the night in their living room because he likes to scratch things in their bedroom. Around 5 o'clock every morning, Henry likes to sit outside of their bedroom door and scream because he wants into the room because nobody is in the living room and its food time. After he gets fed, if you have cereal, he decides that you need to share and will be in your face until the cereal is gone or until you set the bowl down. When you inevitably set the bowl on the table, he takes it upon himself to defeat this mighty foe by pushing it off the table. His favorite toy is plastic straws. Why?

I'm just going to stop with those two. They manage to do dumb things and not get in trouble and they're not even the smart cats. Henry is probably the dumbest cat I've ever seen, and bug is not much higher on the intelligence scale.
For starters, Henry doesn't just knock cereal bowls off of the table. He knocks everything off of the table. He tries to open drawers so that he can empty it's contents onto the floor and looks very confused when you are inevitably upset by this.
Bug doesn't like getting in trouble. She is also very impressionable. We have another cat named Romeo and he gets on the counters to drink water from the sink. We're not sure why but that's not the point.
Bug sees him get onto the counters and doesn't seem to realize why he does this. She decides that she needs to investigate as well, so she jumps onto the counter and moves directly past the sink to look out the window. She just completely misses the point. If you don't know, we have essentially a whole wall that is a window. Why she can't just look out that window escapes everyone.

The big question is why do they do these things? You may think its because they're both extremely dumb. This is an incorrect assumption. They both realize the consequences of doing the things they do, but they do them anyway. What do they see that we don't? Where is the joy in emptying a whole drawer onto the kitchen floor? Where is the appeal in sitting in a kitchen sink to look out a window?
It has become very obvious to me that the most essential part of being a cat is just absolutely going apes***
Scream at 3 in the morning if it suits you
Pull out a drawer and just throw its contents everywhere
Find a plastic straw and chase it around the house because why not?
Stand on your kitchen sink and completely ignore all of the other completely functional windows that are part of your house
Or maybe don't do those things. It depends on how much fear seeming crazy causes you. Also please remember that if you throw things everywhere you have to clean them up. I know I'm encouraging this but I'm not cleaning it up. Just have fun. That is the real reason that cats do things like push things off of surfaces. Because its fun. Do something completely harmless and dumb but have fun doing it.