They say that true compassion is really empathy, the ability to put yourself in the shoes of another. If this is so, and I believe that it is, then tonight I am a New York Carriage Horse Driver, I am standing in their shoes, I have, for the first time in my life been accused of abusing a horse by means of annoying children.
This morning, I wrote a piece on my blog called The Parable Of Three Children. In the story, I described the beautiful (to me) experience of watching some children encounter a carriage horse for the first time and I wrote that if children could vote in this wrenching drama, every single one of them in all of the world would choose a carriage horse over a vintage electric car.
John Updike wrote that you know you are beginning to matter in the world when people take the trouble to say nasty things about you.
In the carriage horse story, I am beginning to matter.
When I got home from New York, there was a rash of furious messages accusing me of abusing the carriage horses Sunday by encouraging and working with children to pet and annoy them. “Clearly,” said Starbird of my piece, “you are a right-wing lunatic. NO ONE with a brain, or with a modicum of compassion would promote the use of children to approach carriages and abuse the horses.”
This use of children to bother the horses (and give them carrots), wrote Katy from Brooklyn, ” is archaic, abusive and needs to stop.” She described herself as a member of NYClass, the animal rights organization leading the effort (along with the city’s mayor) to save the horses by banishing them to rescue farms and slaughterhouses.
“Why do you want them to be abused?,” added Starbird. “Why are you on the side of suffering and not on the side of compassion?” Well, I huffed to myself, where else would a right-wing lunatic be?
“No grass, no turn out, no flat land to run and play, NOTHING BUT WORK for drivers who keep getting caught abusing them,” wrote Andrew,” and “now, they are subjected to poking and prodding from children. The children should leave the horses alone.”
My life is not an argument, I do not do the nasty-e-mail thing. I did not write back to Andrew and point out that no carriage driver in 150 years has been caught abusing a carriage horse, I was more focused on the notion of horse abuse by child, something even the city’s mayor has not yet thought to ban. And I have to be honest, I didn’t get the sense Andrew was all that open to a dialogue.
Tonight, I am beginning to see why the carriage drivers sometimes seem twitchy and strange, why they have hollow eyes, are sometimes unshaven, wear those big hats, dress in tuxedos, look at their cell phones frequently and start at the sounds of loud noises. My wife says I started doing the same thing myself tonight. “Why are you so jumpy?,” she asked.
But I did write back to Starbird.
“Dear Starbird,” I wrote:
“You seem like a sweet and reasonable person. I have been called a lunatic too many times to count, and I believe it is an accurate and perceptive statement. I have most often been called a left-wing lunatic, but in the age of labeling, I have frequently been called a right-wing lunatic as well. I think there must be something to it. I have an IDEA FOR YOU!!!. How about we meet in Central Park at the Grand Army Plaza at 6th Avenue and 59th street and go and get one of those vegan, CRUELTY-FREE HOT DOGS, or maybe a non-fat YOGURT FREEZE! Then we can walk down the street a bit and PET A HORSE together. What do you say?”
I also suggested that we take a ride in one of those $3 a minute pedi-cabs, the small carriages pulled by scores (more than 1,000) sweating young actors, artists and mostly immigrant men and some women in the rain and cold and heat pulling tourists through Central Park and around mid-town Manhattan for hours so people can avoid abusing the big horses by letting then pull carriages.
I sent the message just before dinner, I have not yet heard back.