Trip of Goats
A group of goats is called a trip.
It’s a fitting metaphor for how my brain works. Not real goats, but origami ones.
Folded from scratch paper, receipts, sticky notes. Neat creases, sharp corners. Some balanced on two legs. Some mid-leap. Some barely holding their shape. All of them mine.
Picture a trip of origami goats scattered across a table. Then turn on a fan.
That’s my brain.
Thoughts don’t arrive single-file. They scamper. They nudge each other off course. One gets an idea started, another interrupts. Not out of disrespect, but because it’s already seen where the idea is going and wants to help it get there faster.
Each goat is precise in its own way. Folded from memory, instinct, curiosity. They bump into each other, knock each other over, rebuild. I don’t mind the chaos. I trust the folds. I know how they were made.
When people try to follow my thinking, they expect a path. A trail of breadcrumbs. A thesis with supporting paragraphs. But I don’t think in trails. I think in leaps. Across topics, across time. Sometimes it makes sense. Sometimes it doesn’t. But the goats always know where they’re going, even if they all get there differently.
I don’t file thoughts away in neat little drawers. I shelve them in goat-sized nooks. Arguments next to memories. Trivia next to trauma. Paper goats curled around hard truths. It’s all stored – accessible, but only if you know the system. Which is to say: only if you know me.
I want to understand things fully. Not just what they are, but how they’re shaped. I want the original sheet of paper/ I want to unfold it, see the pattern of creases and then fold it again, cleaner this time. Smarter. Tighter. I want to watch the same goat emerge from a better process.
The fan keeps going. The goats keep moving. It looks chaotic. But I know the folds. I trust the folds.
This is how my brain works:
A trip of origami goats.
Unruly. Ingenious.