The Equestrian God Complex

It's tough to admit you don't know. That you're only guessing. That you are, in fact, human and not a god.

[12:12] Now I've been sort of banging on about this for the last couple of months, and people sometimes say to me, “Well Tim, it's kind of obvious. Obviously trial and error is very important. Obviously experimentation is very important. Now why are you just wandering around saying this obvious thing?”

So I say, okay, fine. You think it's obvious? I will admit it's obvious when schools start teaching children that there are some problems that don't have a correct answer. Stop giving them lists of questions every single one of which has an answer. And there's an authority figure in the corner behind the teacher's desk who knows all the answers. And if you can't find the answers, you must be lazy or stupid. When schools stop doing that all the time, I will admit that, yes, it's obvious that trial and error is a good thing. When a politician stands up campaigning for elected office and says, “I want to fix our health system. I want to fix our education system. I have no idea how to do it. I have half a dozen ideas. We're going to test them out. They'll probably all fail. Then we'll test some other ideas out. We'll find some that work. We'll build on those. We'll get rid of the ones that don't.” — when a politician campaigns on that platform, and more importantly, when voters like you and me are willing to vote for that kind of politician, then I will admit that it is obvious that trial and error works…

Tim Harford
Trial, error and the God complex

If you post a question online about your horse, chances are you'll receive dozens of answers from strangers. People who've never met you or your horse, yet they all know the solution without hesitation.

Don't we all know exactly what the answer is, the truth and reality, until something too dramatic to ignore forces us to think otherwise?

I used to believe I knew it all. That I understood all the nuances of the horse world, and with it the individual horses and people within it. And of course I had the confidence to match my certainty.

But given enough time, horses provide humbling experiences. Rather, given enough time and conscious focus.

I stopped looking at the horse world to tell me how horsemanship should look. I looked to my horses to tell me instead. I allowed trial and error to creep in. I began admitting to my horses, and myself, “I don't know.”

True humility is contentment.

Henri Frédéric Amiel
Swiss Philosopher, Poet, Critic.

Equestrian God Complex is Mainstream

Look to any clinician, and they have all the answers. They've developed a method. Or have a product that will fix it. A set of DVD's or a weekend clinic will solve it all.

They're in the business of knowing it all.

And we continue to pay them to behave like this.

As Tim Harford pointed out, I want to see clinicians teaching riders about trial and error. To tell their students there are problems with no answer. How do we solve those because they are more prevalent than any professional lets on about.

Admitting we're human

So, in case you ever thought otherwise of me, I'm stating for the record that I just don't know it all. And neither do you.

We should always be looking to the horse for the best clues. They're the only ones who know what it means to be a horse with “horse problems” to be solved.

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