These goats could have walked around the flexible steel ribbon and simply accepted it as some random new part of their environment. They could have. But they’re going viral and have something to teach because they didn’t.
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This video reminded me of when functional fixedness sunk in as I was adjusting back in 2011 to my new surroundings in Bangkok. For weeks at a time I’d catch myself walking the same route to get to the same markets where I’d purchase the same foods. So much around me was new that it felt stable and safe to live with the help of a script. But one day like any other my habits dawned on me and I thought: What the hell am I doing here if not to explore the new?
With that I began taking different routes—many of which were more efficient anyways!—and I began to stumble on new markets and new temples and new awesome life experiences. Was it a coincidence that during this time is also when I had the creative spark to write the majority of a book of poetry (that has recently been accepted for publication by Michigan State University Press) and that I began to feel a deeper connection to the city itself? No way.
As Albert Einstein once quipped:
“The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.”
Look at these goats go, and in the beautiful silence of this video compare their actions with the way in which you go:
–Photo: terryhummer/Flickr
I could watch this over and over.