Deep thoughts on riding horses

This past Saturday I went out riding with some barn buddies. At any given point on our ride, at least one of our horses was being goofy.

I was riding my four year old, Caspian, who has frequent bouts of no steering and no brakes. It's a four year old thing, and won't last forever, I keep telling myself.

Another horse on the ride freaked at a bird in a bush and jumped like a deer.

We started having a conversation shortly after this that went as follows:

We get on 1000+ pound animals who have a strong flight instinct.
They may or may not stop and turn when we need them to.
They only get scared by two things (things that move and things that don't move), but when they do, they jump and run like deer.
They have the mind of two year old humans and you have to use that kind of "reasoning" to talk them through whatever stubborn, angry, scared, or all of the above emotions they may be currently feeling. 

And we do all this under no duress and very willingly! We ARE crazy horse people!