How I Learned about Vice.

No doubt that horses and vice have been interconnected for thousands of years.

Twitch a gelding’s lip with a chain looped steel rod when your 7 years old and you realize real quick that there might not be such a fine line between violence, force and control. 4”2 and a twist of the arm-between he and you- suddenly an asymmetry exists that isn’t mimicked in the rest of society.

Small overpowers large.

Weak controls strong.

Female subdues male.

Walk down the centerline of a double-barreled barn at dusk, with horses stabled to your left and to your right, the concrete and stone still damp from the mornings mucking and pieces of sawdust floating through the air, momentarily captured in the spotlight cast by the setting sun breeching through tiny cracks in the stall doors and listen.

STAMP.

STAMP.

KICK.

STAMP.

STAMP.

KICK.

Like a dragon in a cave you’ve heard the echo of the stud down the corridors all day and for hours have wondered what he looks like. Your imagination has begun to get the best of you at 9. Fire breathing and cloven hoofed this fear, this unknown, excites you.

Approaching his stall, making sure no one spies you falling prey to the temptation of his ferocity and beauty. Lying at the furthest edge of the barn with a buffer of empty stalls placed around him, a veiled protection for the mare’s nearby who send him into an untamable rage with even their slightest tail swish.

Feigning innocence as you near him. Moving in towards the door as you approach. Tension builds as the hoof slamming pauses and you rise up slowly onto the tippy toe’s of your stained red stripped Sperry’s to see in, holding your breath as though you were underwater.

His nostrils pulse. Opening and closing rhythmically. He takes you in with the wild whites of his eyes and curls his lip into the Flehman Response. With his arching crest stretched high into the air as though he was blind and searching he begins to pitch about the stall snorting and clopping his hooves onto the revealed mat below As if to greet you he smacks the door sending a vibration of energy through your fingertips deep into your bones.

Later that night as your dad drives you home in his 1984 Thunderbird you stretch your hand out the window against the force of the air listening to the gears move from 3^rd to 4^th to 5^th and notice that the vibration of the stud still purrs with power in your bones.

Don't lie to me.

I never realized how seminally important Paul Ekman's work has been. I just thought I might have a super power.


If you ever watched the show "Lie to Me" last season (on FOX) then you have been exposed to his theories. He basically took the idea that human facial micro expressions can be broken down to very specific foundational emotions and there by be incredibly useful to those seeking the difference between the truth and the lies that people tell.

As detailed on his Wikipedia entry and counter to the reknowned anthropologist Margaret Mead, "Ekman found that facial expressions of emotion are not culturally determined, but universal to human culture and thus biological in origin. Ekman's finding is now widely accepted by scientists. Expressions he found to be universal included those indicating anger, disgust, fear, joy, sadness, and surprise."

The basic premise is that you can tell if someone is fibbing based on the tiniest and quickest of facial gestures.

Now this...this is gold to me. Yes, because I am a teacher and I want to know what is really going on behind those teenage tales...but also because I dig..I mean really dig the idea of being radically honest.

I have struggled for a long time with this need to be truthful..and can remember more than a few brutal moments (sorry everyone) when I have been called tactless or cruel for this honesty.
It's just always been hard for me to "fake it" around people and in my late 20's (likely due to frontal lobe development) I finally began to work with the concept of diplomacy rather than complete honesty in certain situations.

Part of the reason I hated being "fake" was 'cause I could always pick-up when other people were being this way...could pick it up gutturally..and I did not want people to pick this up from me. I would rather be thought of as crass than as a liar.

Now I think...just maybe..that I was picking up on their micro-expressions. That I was picking up on the glaring contradictions of their micro frowns and sunny stories.

And for just $69.00 and one hour with METT Online...I can begin my transformation into a super hero...or just a better teacher and communicator.