What drives them.

What is the meaning of life? No. It is: what is the meaning of horses? What is the meaning of people and horses? What drives us to them? Yes, that is the question.

What drives us to the horse? Is something within them and about them that we wish to see within and about ourselves: elegance or power or grace? Perhaps we ourselves wish we could dwell in the illumination of the present and not the dim of the past and to never look back or look forward, but to simply be. Perhaps we wish to humble ourselves in the present of a creature far greater than us in speed and strength and social. Perhaps it is to feel a sense of risk in accompanying one so large and unpredictable, and to know that we trust them still.

Perhaps it is the longing for a bound outside that of the confines of humanity, and one that blends harmoniously within the realm of nature and all that civilization considers primitive and beastly. Perhaps, to ride atop a horse, we can achieve a glorious freedom we could only visit in the dusky world of dreams and the subconscious. We can laugh without fear of social condemnation, speak our innermost thoughts without an ounce of thought nor a thread of remorse, relieve our frustration before it turns to destructive inner violence. Perhaps it is to relieve our instinctual drive to love, trust, and care for without the unbearable hurt of betrayal that only the complexities of human nature are consciously capable of. For what we give to the horse, they will, without fail, return wholeheartedly.

Or perhaps, more cynically, one might say that some abuse this. Some use the horse as a means of control over their uncontrollable lives. Some use the horse as way to be looked up upon when otherwise they might have been trampled, to achieve something when nothing else was readily available. Some would wish to exploit the horse's unfathomable will and need to please by making them suffer for it in the torturous arms of neglect and abuse, whilst those who care can only stand by and weep. Or, perhaps, give them a chance to be strong and fight for the inalienable right to live prosperously that is bestowed upon all of nature's creations.

Perhaps, then, horses are our God-given purpose. Perhaps it is we - any persons who have been fortunate enough to be within and enjoy the company of the horse - who were blessed with such an opportunity to relieve our emotional faculties by simply feeling the warm breath on your cheek, and the velveteen muzzle brush your palm, and powerful muscles ripple beneath your body, and the gaze of multifaceted eyes connect with that of your own and know that you have achieved a nirvana of sorts:

Something, perhaps, that is truly unexplainable.