Bullish red reasons for our limitations

These two bulls have something to say about why it's so hard to get what we want

Thalia Toha

Dec 12, 2023

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Hi, everyone-

Last week, we touched on happiness. This week, I wanted to introduce you to Billy.

I met a young cow named Billy last winter. He was nursing from his mother. He was tiny. But this year, he got bigger than his mother. He grew horns. And every morning, I get to wave hello.

The other day I caught Billy snout-down on his grain bucket. He was still. Very still. He wasn’t dead.

He was asleep. Standing up!

I mean … I cracked up. He needs to teach me how to do that.

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Billy wouldn’t hurt a fly.

But he is a bull.

The stereotypical image of a bull is that of limitless huff and puff. Especially in the US. That’s why we say things like:

“It’ll be a bullish market this year,” when the economy is strong.
“Take the bull by the horn” when we want unstoppability.
Even Red Bull sports drinks are supposed to fuel extreme sports.

It all sounds good. Really good.

But Billy couldn’t care less. About strength. About power. Or even about speed. The most exertion I’ve ever seen from him was a lazy prance towards her mother’s grain bucket.

I do wonder, though, what Billy thinks about his limits.

His grazing area is not the largest. The fencing made sure of it. Do you think he would say,

“Why is my fence so close?”

I kept trying to get these guys to look up. But they aren’t having it that day. Occasionally, though, they’d nod around. Next time, I’ll share a closer picture.

Dr. Temple Grandin’s vast work on the “no dead-end” flow, has helped cattle handling. And oddly, her work also touches on autism and ADHD.

But I wonder how much of her theories also apply to just our day-to-day human behavior?

In the animal kingdom, the question may sound like “Why is my fence so close?”

But in the human kingdom, our questions sound more like:

“Why can’t I do that?
“Why is it so hard for me to do this?”
“Why am I so hard on myself?”

We sense that “hardness” are lines and limitations. Such that they are “so” dead ends. In much the same way that Billy’s fence-lines are his limits.

In the US, we don’t like limits much.

It’s a sign of weakness.

And we glorify superheroes who are limitless. Chris Hemsworth’s recent series titled “Limitless” on National Geographic, proves this. I like Hemsworth. I think he’s worth more than his hamstrings. But the title of the series is misleading. And perhaps it’s meant to.

I recently chatted about the glorification of the superhero with another National Geographic presenter here.

The point is that we’re treating limitations like it’s a disease.

And being angry, bullish, and stereotypically aggressive, is our current solution to them.

But why do thinkers say things like:

“Once we accept our limits, we go beyond them."- Albert Einstein

Is there something more to it?

When the bull-ring lost: Deconstructing how to rise beyond the crowd

This is quite obvious in a real-life bull fight. Bull-fighting is forbidden in most places. But before we point our virtuous fingers at a long-standing tradition, I wanted to tell you about a little place called Granada.

Granada is situated in the southern part of Spain, just north east of Málaga (7.1775° N, 3.5984° W). Worth going to, if you ever have a chance. Source: Physical Map of Spain, GISGeography.

I went to Granada some years ago with my family. When I was out and about one day, I noticed something strange. Everything was closed. But not during their normal siesta hours.

Some kid was twirling around with a red cape. I asked him what’s going on, in my broken Spanish. He only said “El Fandi! El Fandi!”

I didn’t know what he meant.

But the following hour, on the bus, I noticed people were all murmuring the same thing. El Fandi. It wasn’t long before we figured out: They were all going to a bull fight. And the matador of the day is a hometown hero, El Fandi.

I had no clue who this dude was.

I knew nothing about bull-fighting. But the testimony from a grandmother with a cane in the bus, got me curious. I wanted to see what she was talking about.

First, if you’ve never been to a stadium where everybody was shouting the exact same two words repeatedly—you should. My ears were still ringing hours after.

Plaza de Toros de Granada was a circular auditorium. Not the biggest in the world. But it didn’t matter. Because what went on was otherworldly altogether.

When it was time for a break from the main performance, everyone around us pulled out something to eat from their bags. We came unprepared. American stadiums come with endless amounts of junk food stalls. Here, no one needed it. Except for us.

The Matador was graceful. He leaped. Jumped. Timed everything. With surgical precision. And seemingly without fear. It is as if there was an internal dance between the bull, the matador, and the auditorium.

It went something like this: