For most of human history, the fastest you could go was ‘horse’. The steppe nomads pioneered the tech and used it to harass their settled cousins for millennia. Antient and medieval warriors learned how to ride from childhood, and the cowboys out west would have recognized that ancient way of life.
One of the things that happened to every rider, at some point, was being thrown bodily from the saddle back down to earth, with or without all their limbs intact. I’d be surprized if most people weren’t thrown several times.
And the common wisdom handed down was simple: get back on the horse as quickly as you could safely manage it.
If you give yourself time to think about the fall, and the possibility of another, you also give time for the fear of the next fall to set in.
By getting back in the saddle quickly, you stop yourself being able to dwell on the fall.
Stop yourself thinking too deeply about it.
Stop the nerves from being able to take root.
Stop it from being the last time you ever ride.
The horses were accidentally teaching a lesson on dealing with failure… one that cars can’t quite match. (Product idea: a car that yeets drivers a safe-yet-uncomfortable distance for bad driving and road rage.)
Anyone who’s played a hard video game (I recommend Elden Ring or Hollow Knight, or anything pvp, depending on taste) has taken a loss or two in the teeth and gone back for more. I don’t think it hits the same though. (Product idea: a gaming chair that yeets gamers a safe-yet-uncomfortable distance for bad sportsmanship and going on tilt.)
I’ve never been flung from a horse. Never even had a properly hard tumble out of a tree.
But I’ve fallen from a wagon or two along the way, and left it long enough to have the fear set in. I’ve noped out of things I shouldn’t have and doubled down until the situation was irrecoverable.
Nowadays I’ve got more compassion for my past self than I used to. I see the executive dysfunction, impulse control, shame, and overwhelm very differently. Still…
Not this time.
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