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Three secrets to life, twelve IUCN Red List Birds and one palm tree.
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If this edition of inwords was forwarded to you subscribe to get your very own next month.
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Archetypes' Got Talent
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February 12, 2022, La Manga del Mar Menor, Spain
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On Marginal Talent
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One of my heroes, Maria Popova, is the fifteen-year veteran e-mail newsletter publisher of The Marginalian (formerly Brain Pickings). I subscribe to her midweek pick-me-up because the alternative is her Sunday Digest and by then my eyes can't digest one more pixel — as beautiful as hers are.
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On Maximum Digestion
More and more of you open and read inwords each month. I'm grateful for that but I sometimes wonder if the sheer volume of material is daunting for those who don't so I thought I'd try something different this month:
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1.The foreword that usually fills this space and the theme of this month's production, Archetypes' Got Talent is one click away, online this month. If you have a second, let me know whether you think this new way of digesting inwords is better or worse. You can do that by hitting reply or my email address at the bottom of this foreword.
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2.I got hung up with the copywriting I do at The Graphic Language Company that currently pays for How to Brand You (alongside your coffees), so rather than do a shitty job of the conscious brands that I've featured for the past five months, I opted to focus on the archetype-themed observations and introduce you to the Archetype Aviary that will soon be a much bigger part of the flap around here.
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Thanks and Welcomes
Thanks to John, Nancy, Ric, Lorraine, Nina, Greg, Isabel, Liat, Michael, Benjamin, Jamie and Paulina ❤️, Gerard, Carlo, Barry and CK for subscribing.
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And thanks to you for reading and for the coffee.
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Featuring Talented Observations from
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James Thurber ❡
George Lois ❡
John Audubon ❡
Gore Vidal ❡
Sir Thomas Malory ❡
Alex Tzelnic ❡
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❡ Zora Neale Hurston
❡ Henry van Dyke
❡ Cormac McCarthy
❡ Rabbi Shemuel ben Nachmani
❡ Thích Nhất Hạnh
❡ Richard Adams
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How to Find Your Archetype
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If you've taken the Brand Voice Quiz but can't remember your archetype, fear not!
Just start typing howtobrandyou in your browser's address bar until it suggests something that looks like:
howtobrandyou.com /report/your-brand-name
If that doesn't work, just reply to this email and I'll have a look for you.
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The Innocent Archetype is proactively honest, transparent and wonder-ful.
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— under a mackerel sky
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"All men should strive to learn before they die, what they are running from, and to, and why."
— James Thurber, from one of the epigraphs in Under A Mackerel Sky by Rick Stein
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SDG 3: Good Health and Well-being
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SDG 3's aim is to "ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages" and its 13 targets are designed to do so; from Reducing Maternal Mortality to Fighting Communicable Diseases and Achieving Universal Healthcare.
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The Everyperson Archetype is inclusive, individual and the salt of the earth.
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They can often be spotted wearing their striped socks inside out.
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— on barn building
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"The only thing where you need a big group of people to do something is when you’re building an Amish barn."
— George Lois
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SDG 2: Zero Hunger
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The goals of SDG 2 are to end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture. This Global Goal aims at eight targets to end world hunger; from ending malnutrition to maintaining the genetic diversity in foods. The "Things To Do" on this SDG's page basically boil down to "eat more vegetables" but you're smarter than that aren't you? Get yourself some hummus and Sherlock this page for inspiration.
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The Hero Archetype is as humble and vulnerable as it is valiant.
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— on losing nothing
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"I am persuaded that alone in the woods, or at my work, I can make better use of the whole of myself than in any other situation, and that thereby I have lost nothing in exchanging the pleasure of studying men for that of admiring the feathered race."
— John J. Audubon, an epigraph in Birds of America
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SDG 1: No Poverty
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I matched SDG 1, No Poverty, with The Hero archetype because it seems to me that heroic is the level of effort it's going to take to achieve its targets. It's an overwhelming goal but we are making progress. The "Decade of Impact" Report talks about that.
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As gutsy as The Hero Archetype, The Caregiver Archetype embraces compassion and empathy. The risk for this archetype is facing hopelessness with indifference.
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— the reason I don't call you
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"I sometimes think it is because they are so bad at expressing themselves verbally that writers take to pen and paper in the first place."
— Gore Vidal
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Explorer Archetype thinking is synonymous with bucking mainstream mores and myopic thinking — like an albatross and not all that unlike the Outlaw Archetype.
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— to horse
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"THEN Sir Beaumains put on his helm anon, and buckled his shield, and took his horse, and rode after him all that ever he might ride through marshes, and fields, and great dales, that many times his horse and he plunged over the head in deep mires, for he knew not the way, but took the gainest way in that woodness, that many times he was like to perish. And at the last him happened to come to a fair green way [...]"
— Thomas Malory, from Le Morte d'Arthur at Project Gutenberg
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Goal 15: Life On Land
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The targets for SDG 15 aren't specifically about people, which I think is a nice change because, as a species we have been such selfish, destructive asses.
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Ultimately the SDGs are all about us righting as many wrongs as we can before 2030 so that we survive, but it is a breath of fresh air to read about us caring for this planet and the poor creatures that are stuck on it with us, which is what you'll find at the links below.
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Although The Outlaw Archetype is challenging, confronting and sometimes disruptive, it's inherently honourable.
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— (meta)physical education
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"Chaos is distressing and the tendency is to bring about order as fast as possible, by whatever means necessary. The trick, of course, is to be at ease with unease."
— Alex Tzelnic, at Tricycle Magazine
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Goal 13: Climate Action
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The map element in the icon for SDG 13, Climate Action, actually looks like another planet, which would be great because that would mean we could just carry on buying shit and throwing it away for at least another generation.
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Unfortunately, if you look at it in motion on its official SDG page, you'll see it's just a view of earth taken from above Santa's workshop by a drone that the elves obviously didn't make on a Wednesday.
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The Lover Archetype seeks union, is comfortable in surrender, is dedicated and powered by passion and tenderness.
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— and love songs
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"Love, I find is like singing. Everybody can do enough to satisfy themselves, though it may not impress the neighbors as being very much."
— Zora Neale Hurston
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Goal 10: Reduced Inequalities
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The principle of SDG 10 is that "when every individual is self sufficient, the entire world prospers." This Global Goal has 10 targets that are "big picture" macro-level benchmarks. Even the action items take effort and guts and humility and passion: like the Lover Archetype. What? You thought it was all about hugs and kisses?
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The Creator Archetype is imaginative, artistic and visionary.
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It loathes inactivity, occasionally to the point of workaholism.
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— on birdsong
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"Use what talents you possess — the woods will be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best."
— Henry van Dyke
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Goal 7: Affordable and Clean Energy
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Of all the SDGs, this one struck me as being uber-technical but when I listened to Greenlight Planet's Radhika Thakkar speak to James from the SDG Talks Podcast on October 8, 2021 about off-grid communities, individuals walking miles to charge their mobile phones, kids not having lights to study by — I got it.
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The Ruler Archetype is challenged to temper ego with understanding, and to distinguish majesty from bravado.
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— on standing
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"Lightning stood in ragged chains far to the south, silent, the staccato mountains bespoken blue and barren out of the void."
— Cormac McCarthy, in Blood Meridian
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You might find it worthwhile reading that Ruler Archetype observation by Cormac McCarthy more slowly than you did. —Ed.
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Goal 16: Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions
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Whenever I read about SDG 16's mission to, "Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels," I get a little overwhelmed.
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We have been asleep at this planet's wheel for a long while.
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The idea that I can connect these 17 goals and their 169 targets to this archetype and branding experiment gives it more meaning; and the idea of sharing them with you gets me out of bed in the morning — well that, the smell of coffee and needing to pee.
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A Magician brand must strive to weave delight between the lines of its visionary and intuitive story. Its tendency toward arrogance — expectations of colleagues and customers to read its mind — risks distancing its worth from its audience.
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— on seeing
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Goal 11: Sustainable Cities & Communities
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If SDG 11 was simply Sustainable Communities, the cities that are the confluences of those communities would magically look after themselves. We have to think small, local, community to achieve the larger, global goals.
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The Sage is forever seeking balance; it struggles with idealism and its inability to compromise. "Listen more attentively" is sage advice for this archetype.
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— what we are made of
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"For example, my father has passed away, but he has not disappeared. He is still available. In every cell of our bodies we have our parents and ancestors, and we can talk with them, here and now. I do that all the time. I feel that my father is always alive with me. I invite him to walk with me and breathe with me. And what he could not do in his lifetime I try to do for him. We inter-are."
— from Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet, by Thích Nhất Hạnh (Thầy) October 11, 1926 — January 22, 2022
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Goal 12: Responsible Consumption & Production
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I didn't align SDG 12, Responsible Consumption and Production, with The Sage archetype because the colours of their icons are similar (just getting ahead of the few smart-assed subscribers who would have pointed that out — you know who you are). I chose the pairing because responsible production requires tough choices and forward-thinking leadership; two qualities that our dumb-assed decisions have been lacking.
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The Jester Archetype lives for the experience; it is naturally compelling, entertaining and delightful, and is challenged by the tripartite trap of self-importance, disingenuity and indifference.
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— on necessity
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"We take daylight for granted. But moonlight is another matter. It is inconstant. The full moon wanes and returns again. Clouds may obscure it to an extent to which they cannot obscure daylight. Water is necessary to us, but a waterfall is not. Where it is to be found it is something extra, a beautiful ornament. We need daylight and to that extent it is utilitarian, but moonlight we do not need. When it comes, it serves no necessity. It transforms. It falls upon the banks and the grass, separating one long blade from another; turning a drift of brown, frosted leaves from a single heap to innumerable flashing fragments; or glimmering lengthways along wet twigs as though light itself were ductile. Its long beams pour, white and sharp, between the trunks of trees, their clarity fading as they recede into the powdery, misty distance of beech woods at night. In moonlight, two acres of coarse bent grass, undulant and ankle deep, tumbled and rough as a horse's mane, appear like a bay of waves, all shadowy troughs and hollows."
— Richard Adams, Watership Down
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Goal 6: Clean Water & Sanitation
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SDG 6, Clean Water and Sanitation is a tough Global Goal to write about but I refuse to give in to the thinking that my generation and the last few before it have screwed this completely for my six grandkids.
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Like 37,400 other species, Konos, our Pelican-in-Chief (a Dalmatian Pelican from Lake Prespa in Greece), and Jerry, our Chief Algorithm Officer (a Jerdon's Courser from Andhra Pradesh, India) are threatened with extinction and therefore difficult or impossible to find.
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That's not the case with our 🍊 unsubscribe button, because unlike Konos and Jerry it's not the end of the world.
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Read more about beautiful creatures like Konos and Jerry on the IUCN's Red List.
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