Cubicle or Barn?
Creating Passionate Users—Dull, lifeless work environments cause brain damage.
I’ll bet that those of us who spend a large part of our week at a computer to pay the bills and support our horse habits share a common activity at the end of many of our workdays—booting down and racing from the cubicle/office to the barn, where there are almost always interesting, stimulating things to do. Some days, I can’t escape the hive of little square offices fast enough. (And I even have the extreme good fortune of having a window in my tiny office.)
As I'm driving to the outskirts of town and heading into the mountains, I ask myself— Will I groom? Will I train? Will I ride? Will I help the kids work on their seats? Will we explore that interesting looking trail together? Will we work on a vaulting move? How will I teach Tobias the draft horse to do this or that? Is there some minor veterinary task I need to attend to? Will I simply pull a plastic chair into the middle of the pasture and hang out with my little herd?
Did you know that Princeton’s Elizabeth Gould has demonstrated that the structure of the brain is incredibly influenced by one's surroundings? Makes sense to me. This explains why we horse people are, generally as a rule, such a smart bunch. After all, working with horses is a creative and thoughtful process.
She links the caged environments (of some primates) with stress, and stimulating natural environments as less stressful. So what does that mean for an office worker (and former cubicle dweller) like me? There is a big assumption here that a dull, boring, unstimulating cube (and office) life is also stressful (for the brain, anyway—it doesn't mean the work itself is stressful). Her findings stress that in order to keep building new brain cells and not totally dumb down from our environment, we need lots of opportunities for play. And perhaps very importantly—frequent rotation and introduction of new toys.
I much prefer a natural outside environment filled with interesting equines over my office environment and its bureaucrats any day! But the luxury of swapping 40 work hours a week for 40 hours down at the stable is not an option at the moment.
Meet my toys.
A stable of Zuni horse fetishes gallop across the shelf of my little rabbit-warren office. (I have a beautiful gray rabbit fetish with tiny turquoise eyes on the shelf as well, but that’s another story.) The Zuni believe that each fetish embodies the spirit of the animal it symbolizes. When I hold a horse fetish in the palm of my hand—fingers curled around the smooth stone, cradling the weight of it—I understand what they are talking about.
Yes, I admit, there are days when my little Zuni horse fetishes keep me sane. Now I discover that they may even heal my brain! I think I may need to add another one to my collection.
