all cart, no horse

ALL CART, NO HORSE

Hello friend, 

The thing about carts is they have every advantage over horses except one.

Carts require no feeding. Some maintenance, yes, but as a whole, they’re a great deal cheaper to maintain. There’s none of this muck about water, carrots, or tender love and affection. Two wheels or four, carts require little more than some grease and the occasional wash to maintain.

There’s also this pesky business of wandering off: horses require a great deal of attention on that front. They’re forever needing to be tied up or untied, bridled, saddled, hitched to hitching posts and broken by running in circles. Even the wildest of carts generally stays put unless you introduce it to the wrong hill. 

Furthermore, carts carry all the stuff you could ask it to. They never buck, rear, jump, or otherwise act unpredictably. They won’t even make a peep, no matter how hard you load them, gladly sacrificing themselves to being broken before they’ll let out so much as a sound.

Horses—so inconvenient. Poorly designed. Horrible warranties. Lots of work. Every logical angle except one would tell you that two carts and no horse would be a better deal for all concerned parties.

Yet we don’t really say very much about putting the horse in front of the cart, do we? 

Creativity, self-starting, courage, standing alone, kindness, good-naturedness, the care of the human soul….

All things that, perhaps, are more like horses than carts. 

JOURNAL PROMPT: What’s an absolutely critical element of your life that is also largely a pain in the ass?