I wish we
had a better communication system, between horses I mean. It's no
problem in a field, when there is a group of us, and no interfereing
humans, but on the road, I can't communicate to the others I meet.
Partly Simon seems to think I'm not allowed to just set off wherever
I might wan to go, and more importantly, most of the horses we meet,
ie Simon and I when we are out in one of his weirdo vehicles, seem
totally terrified of me.
That's why I want to communicate, to
reassure them, that we won't hurt them. But with somone sitting on
top, kicking them, and a lump of metal clogging up their mouths,
communication isn't easy, and of course the big problem is the person
on top. I watch them. The minute one of us, a horse I mean, gets
startled, or scared, we put our head up, its natural. And we stop,
because who wants to walk into trouble, and if it looks scary, we
turn round and go the other way because we have brains and that is
the sensible reaction.
But these idiots on top, the first
thing they do is jab the poor sod in the mouth, kick him in the ribs
and hit him with a whip. I watch it. Today a horse came past with a
bloke on top, and the horse had never seen me before, and certainly
hadn't seen the iBex, and Simon looks weird at the best of times, but
he went past, nervous, but coping, but he was still stressed. Fifty
yards further on something worried him, and the guy hit him, and they
went along the road for another couple of hundred yards. Flinch, hit,
Flinch hit. From stuff I've seen up on the Broadband, and comments
Simon makes, this is normal. This is what you are meant to do.
Luckily Simon is weird and doesn't.
But you would think the people could
see themselves from our point of view.
We see something strange, we raise our
head, stop and assess things, lining up a good escape route at the
same time. It's sense. If running is what you do, getting ready to
run is vital, and in a narrow lane, if the threat is in front,
running forward is silly. So you get tready to turn. But you only do
this if you are scared.
So something spooks one of us. We get
hit in the mouth, and with a bit, that hurts. The kick and the whip
follow fast. So what does a horse learn? that if something new or
scary or dangerous appears, we get hit. Mouth sides buttocks. Bit
boots and whip. Just pray the shit isn't wearing spurs. So anything
new is going to hurt, anything different is going to hurt.
There's a magic phrase I learned from
Broadband. “Learned helplessness.” It's got to be the most
depressing concept going. If everything you do is wrong, every sign
of individuality, every sign you have a brain of your own gets you
hit. Flinching gets you hit, stopping gets you hit. Starting when not
kicked gets you hit. Not starting when you are kicked gets you hit,
too fast too slow, too high, too low, you get hit, that's how you
learn helplessness, and you learn to just go with the flow. Shut your
eyes, shut your ears, shut your brain, let the bang in the gums, or
the kick in the ribs feed straight through to your legs, do what he
says, become and extension of his brain, let him become a parasite,
controlling you, your every step, your every move...... You will
still get hit, but it becomes random, impersonal, you can't move to
this beat, you just get beaten and ignore it. As you shut down you
learn to do what the parasite wants, let his eyes guide you, his
brain, think for you and maybe he won't hurt you as much, but he will
hurt you anyway, you have learned that you are helpless.
But it takes time, and skill, of a
sort, and courage of a sort, from the human this is, from the
parasite, to get you to this learned helplessness. You have to be
beaten down into it. Most riders can't do it, so you get frightened,
your head comes up, they bang you in the teeth, you stop, they kick
you in the ribs and you turn to safety, they hit you with a whip, and
you run for safety. Because you haven't learned helplessness, you've
learned that something new means pain, that anything new, you get
hit, so you learn to fear the new, and after a few times of spinning
and running for safety, your rider gives up, and you get sold to
another one, who takes you out into new and scary surroundings, and
when you raise your head................
So what has this to do with a literary
review of one of the most popular works of fiction ever. Well it was
never fiction, it was true. Here is Beauty's new partner, after Rory
got the shaft through his chest, talking about his nervousness.
"Well, I hardly know," he
said. "I was timid when I was young, and was a
good deal frightened several times, and
if I saw anything strange I
used to turn and look at it—you see,
with our blinkers one can't see
or understand what a thing is unless
one looks round—and then my master
always gave me a whipping, which of
course made me start on, and did not
make me less afraid. I think if he
would have let me just look at things
quietly, and see that there was nothing
to hurt me, it would have been
all right, and I should have got used
to them. One day an old gentleman
was riding with him, and a large piece
of white paper or rag blew across
just on one side of me. I shied and
started forward. My master as usual
whipped me smartly, but the old man
cried out, 'You're wrong! you're
wrong! You should never whip a horse
for shying; he shies because he is
frightened, and you only frighten him
more and make the habit worse.'
So I suppose all men don't do so. I am
sure I don't want to shy for the
sake of it; but how should one know
what is dangerous and what is not,
if one is never allowed to get used to
anything? I am never afraid of
what I know. Now I was brought up in a
park where there were deer; of
course I knew them as well as I did a
sheep or a cow, but they are not
common, and I know many sensible horses
who are frightened at them, and
who kick up quite a shindy before they
will pass a paddock where there
are deer."
I knew what my companion said was true,
and I wished that every young
horse had as good masters as Farmer
Grey and Squire.
That was written down for Beauty by Anna Sewell
about 140 years ago. 50 million copies of those words have been
published. Can't you human's read?
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