01/11/2025
“Finally the fundamental reality of chaos and order is true for everything alive, not only for us. Living things are always to be found in places they can master, surrounded by things and situations that make them vulnerable.
Order is not enough. You can’t just be stable, and secure, and unchanging, because there are still vital and important new things to be learned. Nonetheless, chaos can be too much. You can’t long tolerate being swamped and overwhelmed beyond your capacity to cope while you are learning what you still need to know. Thus, you need to place one foot in what you have mastered and understood and the other in what you are currently exploring and mastering. Then you have positioned yourself where the terror of existence is under control and you are secure, but where you are also alert and engaged. That is where there is something new to master and some way that you can be improved. That is where meaning is to be found.”
Jordan B Peterson in his book “Twelve rules for life”
Although I couldn’t articulate it in this manner, I have thought about this for years. I have noticed while routine (which would probably be described as order) is important, too much routine and not enough change or challenge causes the horse to be bored, annoyed and irritable but also too much chaos causes horses to be nervous and anxious. I think it’s important to keep a horse as close to the edge between order and chaos. That is where maximum progress is made. I think we need to be very aware of the horses state of mind so we can make adjustments to our approach. If they are relaxed and confident but starting to be board and resentful, perhaps some changes and challenge is needed to give the horse something more to work on. If the horse is nervous and anxious, it’s probably best to not push for much more but instead try to create more routine and allow the horse to gain more muscle memory with the basics and become more confident in what it knows.
Now I realize we don’t live in a perfect world and we all make mistakes and sometimes life throws us curveballs and we can occasionally find ourselves in a situation where the horse gets exposed to more chaos then he was prepared for but I also think it’s important to try to keep as close to that balance on a day to day basis rather than pushing a horse too far and then having to do a bunch of damage control. I try to have enough routine that the horse isn’t anxious but enough challenge that they stay curious and engaged. As Jordan puts it “place one foot in what you have mastered and understood and the other in what you are currently exploring and mastering.”
I don’t know if this is the best way to say this but just some thoughts I’ve been chewing on.
