Borges’s invitation to “build maps of your thoughts” suggests that our inner life is not a formless fog but a terrain that can be charted. Like a cartographer sketching coastlines and mountains, we can trace recurring ideas, fears, and desires, noticing how they connect. In Borges’s own stories, such as “The Garden of Forking Paths” (1941), thoughts form labyrinthine structures, hinting that mental maps are complex, branching patterns rather than simple lines. By turning vague impressions into something diagrammed and deliberate, we begin to see where we have actually been thinking, not just where we imagine ourselves to be. [...]
