THE CRAZY DELUSIONS OF LIFE 

“I’m not strange, weird, off, nor crazy, my reality is just different from yours.” Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll .

Carmel and her shadow Roger Rowley

There have been times when I’ve thought, I’m crazy and completely delusional by pursuing the things I love and doing them my way. And that includes being involved with horses for about 90 percent of my life. Horses did nothing to dispel the idea of craziness, in fact the opposite, I was full of crazy and delusional ideas.

You have to be a tiny bit crazy to love studying pedigrees, inhaling the history of the Arabian breed, enduring decades of sacrifice, while remaining enthusiastic and objective. But I looked around and there were thousands of happy, crazy people exactly like me.

There’s a simple explanation why I became involved with breeding and that’s a deep, deep love of horses. My goal was to be the type of breeder who truly loves and understands my chosen breed. And once I started breeding horses, I couldn’t imagine wanting to do anything else, until I began writing. But more about that later.

I remember being totally involved in writing out my horse’s pedigrees, researching all their countries of origin and how they came to be in Australia.  No Internet back then only magazines and books, which of course was another crazy obsession.

The reason why I bred horses didn’t change dramatically over the years. Maybe my goals grew but I didn’t get trapped by the idea of making money. I actually believe when something like horse breeding or writing books is only about making money little by little something inside you dies.

Michael Lewis said, “It’s always good to have a motive to get you in the chair. If your motive is money, find another one.”

I know if you breed horses you’ll eventually have horses that need to be sold. But the planning for this should begin years before the foal is born. Once you characterise yourself as a breeder, and once you begin having paying customers, your motives for what you do and why can begin to change.

I’ve noticed how human beings are clever enough to justify their actions; commercial success creates pressure for the breeder to be more successful. All those invisible pressures are often followed by a desire to keep up with; to be as good as and even change previous goals to follow the latest fad. By then it’s easy to settle for what will win and what will possibly sell. But I never found find myself thinking, I needed the approval or disapproval of everyone. Water finds its own level and for us it appeared the people interested in what we were breeding found us.

I spent a lot of time observing others. I noticed how, if someone sold a dozen horses once, it appears the brain decides that it’s imperative to sell a dozen horses again. And once the idea is justified many embark on the journey of money.
The thing is, those first dozen horses sold are the best moments you can imagine. After that moment there’s always the misery of desperately trying to do the same again and again. It never goes quite as you think.
So, why not hold onto that first windfall as a touchstone moment and a guide for the future sales. Think of it as a place to come back too with solid planning; a kind of compass to guide you through your breeding goals.

Now I write and there are even more situations when I think that I’m delusional and crazy. I approach my love of reading, books and writing in the exactly same way as I approached breeding horses. At least I don’t have to feed the books! But I still have to feed my mind and find some clarity and reason in the things I love to write about. As with breeding I must have a future plan. Of course I write about horses and the people associated with them. I can’t imagine writing about something I’m not interested in.

When we bred the horses I didn’t say, ‘we can’t breed that cross because it won’t sell.’ Being a writer presents the same dilemma, do I write about vampires or sex? No way, vampires give me the creeps and writing explicit sex would have me sick with laughter. I refuse to ever say or even consider that, ‘I can’t write about what I love because it won’t sell.’ By now I know it’s time consuming and hard work to write a book, so I write about what I love just as I bred the type of Arabian I loved. To do otherwise, well, it doesn’t bare thinking about.

Hugh MacLeod wrote: ‘Art suffers the moment other people start paying for it.’

As Murray St Leger, Chief Executive of The Copyright Agency said in his latest message, 23 June 2015, “Being even a successful author can be a struggle. For example, Sonya Hartnett, who has been shortlisted three times for the Miles Franklin Award (announced last night), says she wrote ‘for years and years and years before I was able to give up working at a bookshop and I was one of the extremely lucky ones. It’s true you don’t do it for the money because you can’t do it for the money and I guess you write in order to be read, but if it’s all free, then how do you eat? It’s nearly impossible for anyone to survive now as a writer, let alone in ten years’ time’.”

Michael Lewis also said, ‘A lot of my best decisions were made in a state of self-delusion. When you’re trying to create a career as a writer, a little delusional thinking goes a long way.’

I’m thinking we ALL have to be a tiny bit delusional and maybe a little crazy to breed the type of horse we adore and to pursue our goals and dreams.  In my case I know I’m delusional when it comes to my writing. To sit down one day and begin to write books! Need I say more.

Happy reading and hug your beautiful horses.

Carmel and Simeon Sarah – Photograph copyright Greg Egan