Breach and Spur 1: “That’s dangerous.”
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Personal)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2023/02/17
You’re going to be writing on equestrianism. That’s dangerous.
So said an elderly equestrian when I talked about writing on equestrianism, in truth, I am coming from the outside of the community into it. Either I’ll spout conventions or say something true, because the conventions can be false, while the formalisms of the trade can be operationally true in a pragmatist sense. They work, while the truths behind, above, and under the trade, are a different sense of truth altogether; I leave that to you.
My introduction to equestrianism was marked by personal naïveté, threats, flirting, bullying, cultured community, class distinctions, mostly ethnic homogeneity, very hardworking people, dirt and dust, lots of horse ‘output’, and a lifestyle unto itself: in short, culture shock.
By the end of the first week, I’d let a pony out. I’d realized the difficulty in merely mucking stalls. At the start, literally, 6 was the max. Granted, I was working at a restaurant at the same time. Albeit a noble effort, it may have been a mix of 91hrs/wk at the other jobs on average all during Covid’s high times, and then this, or something else. Who knows?
I’d begun the transition out of working at four restaurants and overnight janitorial 7 days per week. I was in the process of becoming a full-time stablehand, etc. I’d been introduced to severe bullying; a woman bragging about getting a man fired and then declaring, “So don’t get on my bad side.”
Meaning: In an environment of mostly women, you know, as a guy, one of the reasons for so few men present, and some types of women, perhaps. Deliberate evacuation by some disgruntled women. While, at the same time, you come to these stories, even from the same women, of tragedy.
Realizing: These stories are a product of their narratives, their flaws, their vulnerabilities and inability to cope with life, or their coping with life as best as they can and connecting with horses based on a need to link up with something, feel a mutual return in some way.
Rapes, sexual assaults, witness to stabbing murders of their partners, substance misuse, alcoholism, heavy drinking, vaping, infidelity, sociosexually unrestricted behaviour/promiscuity, smoking, and so forth, are mixed into family life, loving a son, being close to a highly religious family, thinking about a child in their 40s when in their mid-30s, celebrating star riders’ wins, communal sociality, successful business owners and entrepreneurs, saving girls from sex trafficking in another country, and so on.
Grade levels can range from as low as grade 9 to a Ph.D. in physics. It’s the World as well as its own world. I want to explore every facet of subjects. This happens to be another; and another series covering aspects, to breach subject matter and spur thought.
Consider these shorts, not longs.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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