The Tao of Spartacus Jones

Back to the Barn

Horses are claustrophobic by nature. You don't find many feral horses gathered in caves. They like the wide-open spaces. That's because their first line of defense is to run like hell. And you need room for that.
Confinement means you're trapped, trapped means you're dead.
But horses are also adaptable. They learn very quickly. They can learn to associate the confinement of a stall with food, safety and security. That's why sometimes, in a barn fire, a horse who's perfectly free to run away from disaster will turn around and head back into the flames, back to his stall, back to security and death.
It's a tragic thing.

I believe people love freedom, by nature. But people are pretty adaptable, too. They can learn to associate confinement and control with security.
That's why a person will sometimes remain in a situation that's sure to destroy them. They'll stay with a spouse who abuses them; they'll stay with a job they hate; they'll live a life that's unfulfilling. They'll let the likes of a George W. Bush brazenly undermine the bill of rights and just keep waving their little flags. And if they have a chance to vote for a decent, honest man like a Ralph Nader, they panic and bolt back to the safety and security of the status quo.
Back into the barn.
Flames and all.
Of course, most people like to think they're smarter than horses.

I have a photograph in a book someplace.
It's a railroad station in Germany in the early 1940's. All down the track, disappearing into the horizon, is a line of cattle cars with people crammed in like sardines. There are hundreds, hell, maybe thousands more people swarming outside the train cars, trying to climb up into them, getting a boost up from one another. Men, women and children. Elderly and infants. On most, the yellow Star of David is prominently displayed on their clothing.
Now the hell of it is, I can only make out six or seven, maybe eight German soldiers. There's a couple of guys with greaseguns on top of the train cars, about three or four cars apart. There's a guy who looks like an officer pointing out into the crowd and he's flanked by a couple more bullyboys with machine guns. That's about it. Now, I don't know, maybe there's a full brigade just out of camera range. But I don't think so.
I've had this photo a long, long time. I've puzzled over it, trying to understand.
Why didn't somebody jump the guys with the guns, beat their brains in and make a run for it?
Maybe you'd still wind up getting killed, but at least you'd go down swinging, maybe even take a couple of those Aryan supermen with you. Wouldn't that be better than getting on those trains?
I just couldn't understand it.
I'm not saying this to suggest there's anything cowardly or stupid about Jews. Maybe they hadn't heard what was going on in those camps. If they'd heard, maybe they didn't believe it. It would be hard to believe. You wouldn't want to believe that anyone was capable of doing such horrible things to so many innocent people.
Still, in your heart of hearts, you must know that nobody rounds you up in the middle of the night and packs you into a train car at gunpoint for your own good. Wouldn't you just know something bad was up?
I lay awake a lot of nights trying to figure that one.

Finally, a teacher of mine, a 17-hand leopard appaloosa gelding named Benny, taught me the answer.
I was in the barn grooming him, getting ready to tack up for a ride. He was good at ground-tying, would stand there for you til hell froze over or you asked him to move. It happened that one of the barn cats had just had a litter and one of the kittens was wobbling down the center aisle, on the prowl. A little grey puffball. Tiny tail sticking straight up like she was giving the world the finger, eyes watery, not having been opened for long. She paused at the feet of this giant beast I was brushing and looked up at him. He gradually lowered his muzzle to investigate. And when he did, as soon as he got his nose within range, that puny weeks-old kitten gave him a hiss and a swat of her mighty paw.
With a snort, Benny crow-hopped his 1100 pounds backwards and sideways about two feet, knocking me into the tack-room wall, and rolled his eyes, pretty sure he was about to be the kitten's dinner. The kitten sauntered off, maybe to pick on someone her own size.
Despite getting a huge bruise on my ass where I hit a doorknob, it was so ridiculous I had to laugh.
Bennie turned to me and stared balefully. He was not amused.

It took a little while for what my equine mentor had so perfectly demonstrated to sink in, because I'm only a human being, and human beings are not as smart as horses. But it finally got through my thick skull.
If you conceive of yourself as prey, then any predator, no matter how fragile or puny, is a threat to you.
If you conceive of yourself as a predator, no prey, no matter how big or powerful, frightens you.
What you are is important. But what you believe you are is equally important.
So you have to be very careful what you believe about yourself.