Being Young and Not A Horse

Most titles, let alone story ideas, aren’t typically born out of the experience of sitting next to a man in a bright pink leotard, half intoxicated, talking about horse tranquillisers and their attractiveness to young people that would like to feel, for one word, otherworldly.

This title, however, was.

The inspiration behind the title of this story also carves a sliver of suggestion as to how on Earth I ended up next to a man in a bright pink leotard talking about getting high off horse tranquilliser.

Let me break it down for you like a fraction.

Number 1— The Context

My good friend is leaving behind the sultry summer of Australia and travelling overseas to Europe. After holidaying around the cold, unforgiving winter weather, he will then undertake an exchange program at Bristol University, where he will undoubtfully have a cracker of a time.

Number 2 — The Man in the Pink Leotard

This one is an interesting enigma. While most people require their blood to be thoroughly infused with alcohol to be game enough to squeeze into a pink leotard for the sake of a farewell party, this one doesn’t.

I’ve known him as long as I’ve known myself, but he never ceases to surprise me, and everyone else in the vicinity.

Oh yes, and that’s the other thing — the leotard was his ex-girlfriend’s.

Why hasn’t he handed it back to her? I’ll probably never know. Maybe it suits him better, although I can’t indulge this particular line of thinking. No one would want their testicles and accompanying organ squashed inside a restrictive piece of clothing.

But as they say, no pain, no gain.

Yet I’m still trying to figure of what the gain actually is.

Number 3 — Horse Tranquilliser

Ah yes. Horse tranquilliser.

Well, my brother and his friend (who is actually my friend as well, with a dash with sexual tension), were quite fond of the stuff.

Now, to answer the obvious question — no, they’re not horses.

Why would someone take horse tranquilliser?

Well, it’s just like taking any other drug. To feel not yourself, to feel otherworldly, to feel like you’re invincible, to lift you out of a rut, to have a good time. The reasons are often interchangeable and not always separate.

Luckily, the two are off the horse tranquillisers and back onto more ‘gatewayish’ drugs.

But the combination of the man in the pink leotard and the introduction of horse tranquilliser on the human body got me thinking.

The Thinking

This is going to sound incredibly deep, but I am currently halfway through a goon baby (by name of Smirnoff, with silver skin and black eye), so deep is the only level I am currently operating on. So far, I’m not Marianas Trench deep, but I am bordering on the bottom of an Olympic swimming pool. So, deep enough to embark on this conversation.

Perhaps the causes of all the above items — from the man in the pink leotard, who gives negative fucks, to my brother and our friend who wanted to achieve the feeling of being God-like — is a direct consequence of being young.

Let’s examine youth for a second:

• For me and my particular group, we live in a first world country, with access with cheap (if not free) healthcare, a high standard of living, sanitation, shelter, and an abundance of food and water.
• Youth are short-sighted. We look at our own lives, lives of two decades or less, and think — wow. It’s taken a looooong time to get here, and by that logic, it’s going to take a looooong time to get to where our parents are now.
• The majority of youth have healthy, functioning organs. What better conditions to load up our bodies with drugs and junk food?
• The future is still a mystery. We don’t have a set schedule for life yet. We haven’t yet begun our living.

The casual optimism of a future that is undecided, let alone uncertain, is perhaps the one thing that youth consistently share and is what defines us as ‘youth.’ Throwing away inhibitions, warnings, societal norms, so youth can cast their own moulds in life — this is why the man wears the pink leotard. This is why horse tranquillisers are taken. This is why youth do what they do, but more importantly, why they do it.

Yet with youth comes risk.

While busying moulding themselves into the shape they desire, there is the possibility of failing to recognise that clay, given enough time, hardens.

Youth, I believe, are intrinsically aware of this, and strive to never harden, to never stop, nor slow, in their pursuit of moulding.

Therein lies a lesson for all of us; young, old and everyone in-between.

The Lesson

Don’t drink so much.