Chapter Three Roundtable: Archetype in Modern Storytelling

          Archetypes aren’t dusty literary terms; they’re the shorthand your nervous system already speaks. We jump back into Chapter Three of Language of the Soul and ask the question underlying every indelible story: why do certain characters, symbols, storytelling templates and patterns persist over time, no matter how we evolve?
          In this episode, Dominick and Virginia springboard off "Language of the Soul," Chapter Three, discussing the gamut from archetype to stereotype to cliche, as well as cultural relativity versus universality and the survival-based phenomenon of innate response to formal properties that becomes generalized in the human psyche for sheer survival. We discuss how this encoding on our collective psyche accounts for not just the meaning inherent in storytelling, but its resonance. Whether one subscribes to Jungian notions like the collective unconscious or takes the more empirical view that all tropes are imparted via social conditioning, the bottom line is the same: archetypes are the language we speak as artists. And story is categorically empowered by getting to know the Language of the Soul.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:45

Hi guys, and welcome to Language of the Soul Podcast, where life is story. Our regular listeners will know we've taken a little bit of a break. We um had to, unfortunately, uh take a break for the first time in three years. Uh, I won't get spend the entire episode going into what we've been up to, but in my case, uh it was a move, and we all know logistically moving is a lot. Uh, but preceding that was a buyout agreement. So a little complicated, a lot of late-night phone calls with my lawyer and stuff like that. So I just had to take a break. And uh Virginia, I she can speak for herself, but I believe was getting her licensure as a therapist, which is a

We Are Back After A Break

SPEAKER_00 1:30

lot. You were finishing up your program and getting your licensure. I'm not inviting you in yet.

unknown 1:34

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:35

But anyway, it was just uh it broke my heart, but it was a necessary break. And I miss it. I'm gonna be honest. I, you know, we've talked about the ways in which it serves us, and it's not therapy per se, but it's the type of conversation we're having. Um, I just love doing this, and uh it inspires me and keeps me going. Uh, so I've missed it, and Virginia can speak for herself. But uh, when I invite her in, she's very patiently waiting in the green room. Uh, I just wanted to remind viewers, you may recall, we were kind of motoring through the different chapters of the book that inspired this podcast. So, Language of the Soul, the book. Um, we finally went back and started addressing the chapters in the book by having roundtable discussions about the content with our favorite talking heads or former guests. So we're resuming that and we're only up to chapter three. We've had some pretty stimulating conversations. And for me, it's very rewarding to hear people just chime in on what they got out of my book or different tangents that it might have led to, and hearing them tell their own stories about uh what I'm trying to offer in the book. So hopefully today will be no different. But in that spirit, we're picking up with chapter three, archetypes in modern storytelling. And Virginia is gonna man that uh operation. Welcome, Virginia Grenier, grinier, grinier.

SPEAKER_03 3:01

Yeah, either way, it is grenier. Um, I think I I know we've talked about them.

SPEAKER_00 3:06

I was like, we thought we'd go back to that.

SPEAKER_03 3:09

Yeah, um, yeah. Well, it is a controversy because I'm married to the to a man who says, Well, we're my family's now in America, so we say grenier, but it is grenier because it's French.

SPEAKER_00 3:19

Um, does he say gray poupon?

SPEAKER_03 3:23

He doesn't, he doesn't speak a lick of it.

SPEAKER_00 3:25

No, grey poupon, the mustard.

SPEAKER_03 3:28

Yeah, I know, but he doesn't, he doesn't like that mustard, and he doesn't, and he doesn't have any French in him whatsoever.

SPEAKER_00 3:34

His his He can't even speak the word Grey Poupon. Got it.

SPEAKER_03 3:37

No, yeah, no. His his grandparents and his parents didn't pass it down. Um, anyways, so yeah, so we are in chapter three. Um, it's these uh you can go back if you if if you don't remember or hadn't listened to the chapter, Nick does an amazing job reading the uh each chapter of the book. Um so I do encourage you guys to do that. Um so to to kind of get it going, it's the chapter three is is going into uh the archetype in modern storytelling is is is the the name of that episode that we're gonna be discussing. It's just Nick and I this time. And I don't want to quite go into asking you a question yet, Nick. I just at the beginning of the chapter,

Chapter Three And The Big Question

SPEAKER_03 4:30

um, I just wanted to throw us out that this is just kind of what what was going through my mind. Um, Nick does a an exercise um that he that would happen as well when teaching at the art center um with his students. And when I was listening to it, it really brought into for me that stage, and later in the chapter, you actually do talk about Pierge, John Pierge, and um child development and and how kids, you know, how we go through the developmental likes like life cycle of children. And so what's what's interesting is as I was listening to that exercise, I thought about, well, yeah, of course, people, you know, when we're younger, everything feels like an original thought. And then we go into adolescent, it's because it's the first time, right? We're discovering, it's not wonder, which is why I think we love animation, which is which is why I love this book, because it really is in many ways what where is that child-esque wonder, right? Of of being it, of being a kid and and fighting stuff. And then, and then of course, my my lovely clinical brain started going into, yeah, and then we reach adolescence, and then you know, that angst kind of comes in sometimes for us or whatever. However, we also start to go, well, you know, maybe I didn't completely have an original idea. However, I see how these patterns are forming, and then we get into our old age, whatever that is, because I don't believe I'm I'm there yet. Maturity, maturity, the maturity, the maturity years, and then we realize even though we see these patterns, we see that cylindrical process, um, metaphors coming back up, archetypes coming back up, even stereotypes. And I know we get into stereotypes later in this chapter as well. Um, you talk a little bit about that too, um, even though it is focused on archetypes, but how they're that difference. Um again, it's with that wisdom we realize, oh, well, what else is there to learn and discover under it? And so that's kind of where my brain started at the when I first listened to the beginning of the chapter over again um in

Why Archetypes Keep Resonating

SPEAKER_03 6:40

my mind. So with that in mind, what I put out to you, Nick, is do you think that there's a reason archetypes endure?

SPEAKER_00 6:50

Well, there's a myriad of reasons, and that's what we're here to talk to talk about. But um, I'm sure you have your opinion. But, you know, academically, there are many reasons that archetypes endure and inform storytelling, but I would argue every aspect of life. But to backpedal a little bit and um address some of the things you said, you know, I mentioned Piaget a bit later in the context of I broaden archetypes to mean innate responses to formal properties. Because again, at Art Center, we talk about not just blood and what it conjures in the psyche, but the color red, right? So we talk about bridge. Well, it doesn't have to be a literal bridge, it can just be an arch, you know, that still carries all the same connotations or denotations. So I talk about piagé because there's a generalizing function of the brain. Um, that means you know, a child doesn't need to prick his finger on a knife, an icicle, a tooth, a shard of glass to know that angular or sharp shapes represent danger to the psyche. And this is the language we artists are speaking, right? When we design a character and we use shape language, do I use curvilinear forms or do I lose, you know, use jagged angular forms? And what does that do for the psyche? I think um if anyone wants to look at uh the uh the incredibles, do you know the character designs in that are really, really well thought out from the color symbology of you know blue for the uh sympathetic characters and the heroic characters to red as menace, a lot of the archetypal, almost cliche ones. But um, anyway, that's a great one to look at for character designs to look at the curvilinear versus the angular. So, anyway, that's why I mentioned Piaget a bit later, but I think we could spend the entire episode talking about the basis of archetypes. I think there's a few schools of thought on where they live, you know, is it nature or nurture or both? And then the difference between archetype to stereotype to cliche, and also most importantly to me, what's the difference between a trope and yes, a universal, durable, lasting archetype? A lot of empiricists, you know, it's very fashionable to be empirical these days and say, well, you know, Jung was a quack. There's no, and we'll get into defining some of this stuff, but there's no reservoir called the collective unconscious, it's all learned during our lifetimes through social conditioning. So all the tropes we carry in our little psyches, like you said, it might be revealed later that, oh, that's an existing trope. And now I've seen it a million times at age 50, but I hadn't when I thought I invented it at age 12, right? Uh there's uh I think it's very fashionable to say, oh, it's all learned during our lifetime. And I've seen that in my teaching. So let's talk about that a little bit, you know, um, social conditioning or call it what you want, um, socialization. We do inherit a lot of tropes that have been repeated in literature and cinema, but it doesn't mean the resonance isn't based in something that is epigenetic, that's maybe in our cellular DNA or hardwired on our cellular memory. Does that make a little bit of sense?

SPEAKER_02 10:24

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 10:25

Yeah, we can parse all that. I just noticed in education, it's less and less fashionable to even talk about archetypes. And I tell my students, like, well, you're an artist, so if you don't get comfortable with it, you're missing out. That's the language we speak as artists. I'm already getting passionate. Sorry.

SPEAKER_03 10:41

No, and I'm glad you are. And one of the ones you did get passionate about when we're talking when you when you go into the book and and start talking about different archetypes, you spend some time with the orphans.

The Orphan Archetype And Longing

SPEAKER_01 10:53

And you laugh.

SPEAKER_00 10:55

And I don't know. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 10:57

Yeah, well, you did. You mentioned you mentioned the art.

SPEAKER_03 10:59

It was and what was interesting is and you you pointed this out in the in as well in the chapter about how you know there's always in Disney the character that has the one deceased parent.

SPEAKER_04 11:11

Right.

SPEAKER_03 11:11

And and I was like, that's so interesting that that Nick that for Nick the orphans stood out for you as a as an archetype because I did, I was going, I wonder if that's that Disney influence, because you know, and you you did mention, you know, um the Lion King. You you pokey Pinocchio was used a lot, so we'll we'll go into Pinocchio in a second because Pinocchio has a lot of archetypes in it. Um, but yeah, I mean there's there's quite a few. I think the most memorable probably for all of us, Gen Xers, is definitely Bambi, um, especially that opening scene of mommy being shot by the hunter.

SPEAKER_00 11:43

Um yeah, that fucked us all up for sure.

SPEAKER_03 11:46

Yeah, I think that's pretty much that that defines Gen X, I think 100%.

SPEAKER_00 11:50

Um it explains Gen X. Yeah, still haunted by Bambi.

SPEAKER_03 11:55

Yeah, there's there's our stereotype, Bambi haunted us. Um, so that's why we're the way we are. Um to stereotype us.

SPEAKER_00 12:04

If you buy that we're hard asses, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:06

Yeah, if you buy that stereotype, exactly. Um, so anyhow, so let's still let's go into Pinocchio and uh hold on.

SPEAKER_00 12:14

You said Pinocchio is layered with archetypes and it's just before is there a dog whining? Sorry. Okay, that's okay.

SPEAKER_03 12:25

Yep, that's my German shepherd.

SPEAKER_00 12:27

No problem. I just threw a shoe at Bowie because he's nibble we used to call it nibble notching.

SPEAKER_03 12:32

She was locked, she was locked up, someone let her out.

SPEAKER_00 12:34

Oh, no worries. But Bowie was chewing, which you know, some people what is that disorder where you can't stand the sound of chewing?

SPEAKER_03 12:44

Um, well, I know it's it's it's definitely a sensory disorder, but the exact one I do.

SPEAKER_00 12:49

There is one, yeah. And I don't have it, but I'm developing it thanks to Bowie. But he's we used to call it nibble notching when they just chew and chew. So I had to throw a shoe at him. So I will forgive the dog. That's a husky, right?

SPEAKER_03 13:03

Uh German Shepherd.

SPEAKER_00 13:04

Oh, I heard it.

SPEAKER_03 13:06

Yeah, she's a well, she has she's a mix, but she looks more German Shepherd. She's a German Shepherd husky mix, but German Shepherds are just as bad.

SPEAKER_00 13:15

I thought you had a white husky with blue eyes.

SPEAKER_03 13:18

Uh, that's that's my Australian Pyrenees mix.

SPEAKER_00 13:22

Oh, no husky in there?

SPEAKER_03 13:24

No.

SPEAKER_00 13:24

Oh, please, I've seen pictures. Come on.

SPEAKER_03 13:27

The Australian Shepherds, the the dual-colored ice.

SPEAKER_00 13:30

Okay, well, yeah, we'll get to the bottom of that later. Yeah, anyway. Um, the orphan archetype, it's I see why you would say my Disney background inclined me to fixate on that one, but it's more than that, it's a huge archetype and literary device, right? And I went into in the book why it exists. So I would say Little Orphan Annie, you know, is has nothing to do with Disney. And uh, if you watch Mavien Ross or uh anything based on Edith Piaf, she's the quintessential orphan, right? And there are many examples of that archetype. But in the book, I go into, and it kind of speaks a little bit to the empirical versus the more I don't know, spiritual notions about archetypes. Uh, it says a lot that when I ask my students, and they're young and maybe not given permission to talk in these terms in academia very much, but when I say, Why do you suppose that is? You know, why do you think Disney always includes a missing parent? Their answers were often, oh, because your heart goes out to them, you know, like the dog that's been kicked too much. So it's they're not wrong, and it's a wise instinct to say, well, your protagonist has to elicit our empathy or compassion. Not wrong, because you want to invest in their want and their need and meaning their goal. So they're not wrong, but I also then gently say, sure, but that's superficial. And in my opinion, it's a little more like, oh, it keys into that longing, the seeking. I have a book called The Seeker, for God's sake. So when we feel we've been transplanted as sentient beings in the right physical world, when consciousness is metaphysical, we do feel displaced. That's why so many look to the heavens for daddy. And that's kind of how I put it. It creates a longing and a desire for uh, you name it, fulfillment, tranquility, inner peace, well-being, satisfaction, all those things we are all spiritually seeking if we're in touch with it.

SPEAKER_03 15:39

Yeah, and I and I love that. And for me, when you were talking about it, and you you did briefly mention um Oliver Twist, which was one of the defining books, and even later made into a movie, um, during our childhood.

Innocence, Karma, Great Expectations

SPEAKER_03 15:55

That I mean, I know the book wasn't when we were kids because it's Dickens, but um I I loved that story so much.

SPEAKER_00 16:04

Well, even Pippin Pippin was pretty much orphaned and raised by his aunt and uncle, right? I don't know Oliver Twist that well, I'll be honest, but I heard you want to slit your wrists after watching it on stage. You want to jump out a window.

SPEAKER_03 16:15

But yeah, but it it not only does it have the the child wonder of navigating life, right? Upon your own, but exactly all those things. It's that, you know, hope, it's the desire, it's the longing, it really invokes all of that in you. Um, and I love that you mentioned Pip Pippin too, because same thing, yeah. Um love love great expectations. I do too.

SPEAKER_00 16:43

Probably for different reasons, but I it's a big part of my worldview, actually. We get into that one.

SPEAKER_03 16:48

Yeah, I mean, again, same thing, right? You know, he's not and and I I think go so let's talk about let's talk about a little bit, let's see Pippin, because I've had people who've read great expectations, like, well, he's you know, because of his life circumstances, he's looking for the grasses greener, and he thinks it's always greener in this you because of this, you know, the the older lady, right?

SPEAKER_00 17:10

Miss Havisham.

SPEAKER_03 17:11

Yeah, and I'm like, but is that is that really what is going on, or is it he's seeing the possibilities and and and finding where he belongs within the opportunities that are out there and what his desire is, versus the grass is green on their side, which to me that's going into that stereotype.

SPEAKER_00 17:30

Well, so you're saying his innocence is contrasted with how very jaded and cynical Miss Havisham is? He's the symbol of innocence. Yeah, maybe. I mean, the thing that I again I haven't read it since 1986 high school, but it did rock my world, and it's one of the I'm not a genre reader. So for good or bad, I've kind of only been exposed to great literature because I don't read much. Like I'm only exposed to what I was forced to read in school, but it has shaped me, you know, from Wuthering Heights to great expectations to the great Gatsby. But in that one, what I walked away with for a lifetime, being a Scorpio, I love longevity, I love threads that connect over time, interconnectivity, yes, loyalty and all of that stuff. I am a typical Scorpio, but I just love threads that connect. So when you can see things come full circle 30, 40 years later, or you see a seed come to fruition, right? Decades later, you realize time is a construct of man, everything's interconnected, and uh that's who I am. I'm a communist by nature. All I see all day, every day is interconnectivity. So I really loved that. Yeah, Pippin, you know, was kind to a stranger in his youth, and it paid off 30 years later, you know, and then all his relationships, he never really lost his uh sense of self or his core essence. And you know, one definition of sin is straying from the self. So I think his integrity paid off. Am I wrong about all of that? Like it seemed like it was about, ooh, don't be so sure that everything's a flash in the pen. There's karma, you know?

SPEAKER_03 19:20

Yeah, no, and you're right. And he did, he did say to his true self, which is what I what I love about him.

SPEAKER_00 19:26

Yeah, didn't I list him as a quintessential innocent in the archetype? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the orphan. He was did I anyway?

SPEAKER_03 19:33

Yeah, he's he's an orphan too, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:35

They're often hand in hand. The quintessential deer in the headlights orphan that is the symbol of innocence, and one of the major templates is preservation of innocence or return to innocence. Uh, but it often goes hand in hand with the orphan archetype.

SPEAKER_03 19:50

Yeah, and and they are they are met with um other character arcs that challenge that throughout the storyline. And I think overall with the innocent and the orphans, the big thing too is if they do start to go awry a little bit, they you know, do they come back to who they to they fully are, which is interesting.

Pinocchio, Strings, Free Will

SPEAKER_03 20:14

So let's go to Pinocchio, because obviously Pinocchio's not an orphan, he's a puppet. Um, however, again, is has that innocence, right? And does get does get challenged in many ways.

SPEAKER_00 20:25

And it's we're all blank slates when we arrive here, right? So he's innocent because he's a blank slate, maybe. Yeah, and he's all of us, right?

SPEAKER_03 20:34

Yeah, but he does go awry. And almost and almost loses himself, as we all know, right, especially out on that island. Um but I love the fact that when you talk about what how about him, you know, on the puppet side of things, too. Um, and Geppetto and being the puppet master.

SPEAKER_00 20:57

Yeah, I I think in the past episodes, you kind of blew me away because you seem to know the template really well. Uh, and I don't remember where you came into that, but I just repeat things I've heard Marianne Williamson say and some other uh people that I listened to. And I don't know, I guess I've come into my own opinion about the significance of Pinocchio. I think there's a reason that it's endured and it does speak to the Italian culture, it's culturally relative to some degree, but I don't know. I guess I'll give you my breakdown and then you can chime in because I do remember you blew me away with something you said previously. So to me, it seems like you know, the obvious is Cippetto is God or the puppet master. And then Pinocchio, his creation is all of us, sort of transplanted here. That yeah, have the will, I mean, have the capacity to betray ourselves or return to innocence, or all of the above. I stole candy bars in junior high. I wouldn't do it now. We all tested our limits, right? I smoked pot, I did a lot of things I wouldn't do now. Yeah, pot for my own reasons. I would do shrooms if you had them. But we all test our limits and figure out who we are in the world by doing that. But anyway, more importantly, I do, I guess I still feel like becoming a real boy is really code for building character, and um, that's what Geppetto wants for his son, but that's what ideally we would want for Pinocchio. And then I've heard speculation that Jimmy Cricket is the Holy Spirit if you're religious, right? Or he's conscious, conscience if you're not. But then I heard actually the blue fairy is. The uh Holy Spirit. So if you just look at how all those elements are interacting in the spiritual journey or the human condition, as non-religious, non-spiritual people like to call it, it's the same thing, right? The hero's journey, the spiritual journey, um, the human condition. Uh, to me, it's all just different parlance for the same concept. And if you look at all those elements and how they interact, I think it speaks for itself. I had one writing teacher that said, you should know your characters so well that you just put two random characters in a room together, they may never interact in the manuscript, but just you should know what they're gonna say to each other. So I think Pinocchio speaks for itself, but you if you label all the archetypes as such in the way that I just did, figure out for yourself what it means. What what would you add to that in terms of the meaning of Pinocchio, the thematic content?

SPEAKER_03 23:40

Um, when I think of the back to and and and probably I might be even being scared for more from when whatever I said that you found so enlightening from before. Um, however, when I think of, I mean, definitely, you know, he is that blank slate, right? Um, Nico says that to Bularaso in in counseling where you walk in, total blank slate um concept. And so what's going to get written upon you based off who you're you're sitting across from and and holding space for or um allowing the narrative to be written upon you. So um, however, he's tied by these strings, right? The strings are what's keeping him from his autonomy, from him venturing out.

SPEAKER_00 24:28

But if God is I maybe you don't agree that Geppetto is God, who is pulling the strings? Is that destiny or fade or what are we bound to?

SPEAKER_03 24:38

Well, and that's the if I if I take it out of out of the religious context, because yeah, because I agree, like you could look at Geppetto, and then when the strings are cut, that's when we get, you know, going biblically, that's of course when we get, you know, agency, right? Which is choice.

SPEAKER_00 24:53

Or free will, is that another way?

SPEAKER_03 24:55

Yeah, or or free will is the other way to put it.

SPEAKER_00 24:57

So the strings outside of religious context, maybe the strings are ethics or morals, which have transcended re any given religion, but it's definitely a thing in culture.

SPEAKER_03 25:08

Yeah, and I was gonna say so that really goes into like if you think about um and and this is you know in anthropology, this is in um socialism, but you you when you look at systems theory, um that that's literally how I look at at the strings is that that's the system in which he was created under and norms, norms and mores and um codes that we live by. Right. And now he has and so and think about this is what we do as adolescents. So going a little bit into the developmental theory, right? We start to test our boundaries, we start and sometimes we break them, so he ends up breaking his strings to to gain his own autonomy to go out and venture. Um, yeah, it's interesting with Jiminy Cricket. I agree with with and and again, going back to like before I go to Jiminy Cricket, back to Geppetto. I mean, yeah, Geppetto is definitely you could look at him as being the creator, um family of origin, um the original mentor um, you know, to to to the beginning of of Pinocchio. But then when Jimmy Cricket comes, yeah, I I definitely believe ultimately, and we know because in the in the story he says, oh, you know, uh you're you're gonna be his conscience, you know. So we all have put Jimmy Cricket in that. However, at the same time, Jimmy Cricket is that external voice telling him what to do. So if you think about that, it's also do I want to listen to everything you're telling me because where's your bias and and judgment and prejudice coming in?

SPEAKER_00 26:45

Well, uh, okay, but the true the true sage kind of defies or transcends all of that. Yeah, I think there's it's open to interpretation. I I was focusing on this uh earth-shattering idea that the blue fairy is the Holy Spirit, not Jiminy Cricket. But I guess we could all define conscience differently, you know, the angel on one shoulder and the devil on the other. Uh, but uh maybe you've really made me think about it in new terms, and I don't know it like the back of my hand. So I'm now thinking that um, yeah, socialization teaches us theoretical boundaries, right? We can all be preached to about morals and ethics, and sometimes they're ill-founded, right? I don't agree with every one of our laws. I think prostitution should be legal. I think pot this came up this morning in my mind about the nameless prince, like how quickly it was rendered dated. I wrote it in 2012, and I had the uncle be a drug dealer, not because he was immoral, but I just wanted him to not be the best father material. He inherited, you know, his nephew, he was the guardian for his nephew, but he wasn't ready. And I don't know why. I guess I was reconciling it with news stories about the Mayans, the the gang in LA, and some of the you know interactions with the homeless community that were going on. And I based a lot of it in news stories, so it just seemed appropriate that the uncle be a drug dealer and he's in bed, not with the mafia, but with Lamo, LA Mayan organization, the gang. I don't know why he became a drug dealer, other than it to me said he's not quite ready to be a father. Now, pot's legal, it doesn't seem sinister at all. A reader now would go, well, he shouldn't be considered a thug because he deals drugs, it's fine. So even the language the young people use, it's like outdated already. So I don't know, all that crossed my mind just this morning. So norms and mores shift and change, and they're not all well founded. Some of our laws are pretty messed up and pretty archaic. So it almost sounds like you are saying that until you test those codes in right through real life experience, they're pretty fallible. And then maybe we come into true um integrity or character by testing those boundaries.

SPEAKER_03 29:21

Yeah, okay. Yeah, no, absolutely. Because I mean, think about it with Jimmy Cricket. I mean, he is, you know, I'm not saying that the advice he's trying to give, the direction he's trying to give is bad by any means, but it's it's based off I I I love it. You talked about common sense in this in in the chapter as well. And um, but this is where I want to go with that one.

Common Sense, Culture, Ethics

SPEAKER_03 29:44

It was you just briefly mentioned it. You didn't go into deep, you know, conversation. It was just as yeah, you know, just as we're going as you're going over archetypes and tropes and stereotypes, um how how and nature versus nurture, and you know, and there's that common sense aspect that comes into play. So I had a I actually had a client who said this to me once, which really I I think is what has skewed me to some degree, um, and how I look at things. And they said, Well, what is common sense? Because it's a sense it's relative. It is, it's the sense in which you were born.

SPEAKER_00 30:20

Oh, you think or the the client thing.

SPEAKER_03 30:22

That's that's what the client said that it's the sense in which you're born. And when I when I actually stopped and thought about that, I went, well, it's true because what's common sense to and I can say this because I've moved from from many states, what was common sense to me in California and moving to Utah, I mean, there are some crossovers because it's still culturally the United States. There are some differences where I look at some people and go, how why does that make sense to you? Like, duh. Um, that that you know, like something's off with that thought process. But for them, being here in Utah, that was again going back in that cultural realm, you know, the the socialization, it's that makes sense to them. I'm going, okay. Um, so you you think and Nick, you mean you've been in other countries. I mean, how how often did you see something that was like logical and would make sense to us here in the US? Where you're going, yeah, over there, they'd look at you like, what are you doing?

SPEAKER_00 31:17

Yeah, I mean, cultural relativity is alive and well, right? And I I my best way to react to that is I remember in high school, 1985. It was cool to be Christian, by the way. You were supposed to be done with your pot smoking, and it was cool to be Christian. So one of my Christian friends, you know, I didn't escape it. I went to, you know, UMYF, United Methodist Youth Fellowship. I did all the different denominations of uh Protestantism, and it wasn't weird to me at all. Um, but anyway, some people took it a little too far, and I won't name any names, but we'll just first names. My friend Chris once said, Well, we're all built like a car without a stereo, and that stereo is Jesus Christ. Like, you know, there is that thought, you need a book to tell you right from wrong, and you are missing something until you plug in that stereo that is Jesus Christ. And I remember thinking, oh, the most dangerous thing in life, even at whatever it was, 1516. I thought, well, thinking we're all the same is is dangerous. I am completely the opposite now. I love the hero's journey, I love the resonance that occurs because of this commonality and universality, and even over time, we evolved pretty slowly. I hear myself say, well, there's a reason Shakespearean templates still resonate, and even the Greek tragedies. Sadly, technology increases exponentially, but we're a little slower to the party, right? We evolve pretty slowly. So I love finding the common ground and the universality now. And I'm fascinated by cultural relativity. So I've also heard myself say, maybe later in life, like 30, that um, well, all the fundamental tenets of all the major religions, if you don't split hairs and parse, are universal. I thought, well, I don't disagree with anything Christ actually said that came out of his mouth hole. I just hate what the early church did do it, you know, and then I demonized institutionalized religion. So, you know, I went out and bought that book called Just Christ. No, just Jesus. Sorry, you got to do the jazz hands, just Jesus. And I had this fantasy that I mean, I love JC and the boys, I think they're awesome. But I thought all the problematic stuff came in with patriarchy, as you were saying, the J Judeo-Christian tradition and the early church. And I bought the book and put it on my coffee table. And as I slowly read it, I was like, ooh, there's some problematic stuff in there. Christ wasn't above any of it, ego or some of the messed up uh things that were very tribal at the time. So I don't know where I'm going with this, other than I think there's a reason ethics is a branch of philosophy. It's never gone away despite religions, despite you know, regional or time-specific norms and mores and codes, because they can be way ill-founded. But I do think we have ethics. Now, I've vacillated over my lifetime in whether it's the hand that rocks the cradle or meaning they're taught, or whether we have an inborn sense of ethics that we could talk about that till the cows come home. But I I generally think if your mama raised you right, you're good. I just worship my mother and thank God she taught me right. But do you believe we have an internal compass? Or do you believe it's all taught by the mother or by society or all the above?

SPEAKER_03 34:56

Um, it's it's all the above, and and I think that's been more solidified in my brain um as I've gotten into narrow, and I know we've talked about narrative therapy therapy before, but um kind of always have always looked at that, um, in general, just from being a writer too.

SPEAKER_00 35:13

Whether we know right from wrong.

SPEAKER_03 35:15

Um the the the fact if we have an innate internal compass, or is it all so that nature versus nurture conversation, or is it all socialization through the things we're told, right? Right and learned and and watched, and therefore, you know, is modeled in front of us, and that's how we, you know, make meaning. Um so going going and I love what you said. So I'm gonna go back to the blue fairy for a second. So you you when you mentioned, you know, that universal uh concept, and that to me taking the blue fairy in a whole nother direction versus saying, you know, that's you know, like the Holy Spirit, which to me is again, I think that's a religious way of saying that's your you know internal compass based off your beliefs value systems, which or it's our line to the in a you know yeah, it's our line to divinity, it's our line to things that defy um go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 36:11

I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_03 36:11

Yeah, or yeah, and or or it can be or it could be that or and or both.

SPEAKER_00 36:16

Conduit. I think of the Holy Spirit as a conduit to divinity, to God.

SPEAKER_03 36:21

Yeah, and so if you look at the Luther Fair in that way, I absolutely agree with you. I I feel like she was more representation of the universal. And when I say universal, I mean the universal truth. And when I go to that, I mean we can all I all agree murdering somebody isn't okay.

SPEAKER_00 36:40

At a dinner, you wouldn't brag about it at a dinner party, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_03 36:44

You know, so like there I found upon. And so that's how I think, like when I when I think of like Jimmy Cricket, I put him kind of in that that mentor category um of a character, you know, when you when you're talking about writing, right? That you got your mentors, which is where you'd have like Gandalf. You mentioned the Oracle, which I love you're like, and they didn't even try to expand very far like who she was, like no originality, she was just the Oracle. You know, but you know, um, however, I I I think that we need to have those people because they're the ones who sit, you know. I mean, basically, you could base say that's again sitting in the counseling chair, that's what they do, right? They present things in front of you, they mirror, they reflect back to you, like this is what I just heard you say, and here's this other thing that you didn't consider, and both truths can be true at once, or maybe not, and so they present that in front of you. So that's what I feel like Jimmy Cricket was doing at the same time. Um, where with the blue fairy, or when you go into more those conduits, it's that they're they're actually like I'm indisputable. It's yeah, you can't. We all know that the we all can agree upon this truth here.

SPEAKER_00 38:01

Yes, you might be right actually, that you know he's one of many forces in our maturity, our emotional and spiritual maturation, but the ultimate truth is the blue fairy. I like that. Yeah, I do want to quickly say we're talking about morality a lot and ethics a lot. I do think largely that's what storytelling does, it teaches us to live in the world. And if you trace you know the history of storytelling, it was largely how we imparted not just the metaphysical or the in the Noah sphere, the metaphysical values of culture. But yes, there's you know, early liturgy was about imparting very you know moralistic concepts. So storytelling is almost inextricable from ethics and morals, if that makes sense, because it it's always taught us how to live in the world, whether it's through mythology or religion. Uh, but there's so much more to it, it's just about nowadays reflecting back the human condition and what we do with that is still up to us, and it's still an ongoing story, right? That we're all characters in, uh individually and collectively. So micro and macro. So I don't want to limit it to morality. I it's getting a little moral here. Yeah.

Mother Archetypes And Attachment

SPEAKER_03 39:19

Well, I want well, but I wanted to go to the mother figure because I know the mother figure is is a major um character that you've you've talked about in in multiple um podcast episodes.

SPEAKER_00 39:30

Well, I've joked, like I keep telling the same story. I clearly have abandonment issues myself speaking to the missing parent. Because yeah, the nameless France was basically regurgitated in the seeker for sure, in the missing mother archetype. So, what do you want to talk about?

SPEAKER_03 39:49

Well, so because you've talked about the mother figure and how important the mother figure can be as an archetype and what she helps us understand as well when we're on, you know, any journey that we're on.

SPEAKER_00 40:06

Well, Andrea should probably come back on, but I think she did talk about the different archetypes of mother, right? There's so many, but one of them eats her children, you know. I was very lucky that I had the quintessential mother archetype, the nurturing mother. And so it says more about my twisted psyche than anything um universal. But in the seeker, I consciously used not just that missing parent archetype that makes you want to seek and find out our metaphysical place in the world, but more so it became a code for divinity. So she was a goddess, he was a demigod, unaware of his divine heritage. So I kind of used it that way. She's missing in action, meaning we play hide and seek with God. That's a Howard Jones reference from the 80s. Remember this uh that great song. I what's it called? There was a time when there was nothing at all. Howard Jones. Yeah, love the song, can't think of the name. Yeah, he's said we play hide and seek with God, and I've really carried that with me. I think I've written about how we would be blinded if we saw divinity all day, every day. We can't handle it, so we see glimpses, and that sustains us during our toil, you know. So that's why I included the missing mother. I'm trying to remember, but in in uh The Nameless Prince, it was more partially the longing, and it wasn't code for divinity at that point, but it was um the mysteries of the past, and uh there were supposed to be rage servicing in Seth uh because he was finally seeing through the facade. You know, people tried to hide things from him, but children are very intuitive. So I just wanted to be about the rage that surfaces, and then what do you do with that? So that story was about over overcoming disillusionment, and then all these years later, the seeker was partially about overcoming futility because when you get old enough, you just throw your hands in the air. Anyway, so I think they served, you know, that same template served different functions on those two books. But I did at one point go, did I just retell the same story? Do I have should I lie down on the couch with Virginia? Dear Lord.

SPEAKER_03 42:27

Well, what I love about the mother archetype too, um, so I'm gonna take it into a couple of different directions. So the first one I'm gonna bring up so kind of going over uh, you know, what what mom what the mother archetype can represent. So going going out into paganism, right? Um, you've got the the the three goddesses, you have the maiden. Um my gosh, I know the last one's a crone. Oh my gosh, I can't remember the third one. Oh that's just totally sorry guys, it totally just slipped my mind. Um because I don't think it's made a mother crone. Maybe it is, and maybe that's why it's like slipping my mind. Anyhow, um, so the you know, the maiden is that again, is that um fertility, innocence, beauty. Then you get into the the second stage. I'm just gonna say the mother if I'm wrong, but should be later. You guys can all send me bad emails later about it. Um, but that's where you know she becomes a mom. So it's that nurturing, it's the caregiver, it's the taking care of, and then you go into the crone, which is the wisdom, the healer, and then the cycle returns, which is also represents the phases of the moon. Um, and and in some, I'm gonna say all pagan, but in quite a few of them. So, anyways, so I love that that arc of when you look at a mother in that in that concept the three the three phases of you know femin feminism as in womanhood.

SPEAKER_00 43:59

Um I mean, even if you didn't pick the right word, those sound accurate. That sounds about right to me.

SPEAKER_03 44:06

Yeah. Um, however, then I think of like going back to that nurturing side, you have like mothers like in Hamlet, um, you know, or gosh, what's another, or you think of stepmothers, right? Where they they you think they're gonna be nurturing, and there's that presentation, like, oh yes, I'm gonna come and I love you, honey, and I'm gonna take, you know, we see that in a lot of a lot of the Disney princesses movies, right? What that have the stepmobs and they all become the wicked stepmothers.

SPEAKER_00 44:36

Um Marianne, sorry to interrupt you, but Marianne Williamson says it beautifully, and I think I've quoted her on here before, but she says, you know. the stepmother archetype is the ego. And the ego promises to protect you and care for you and nurture you and love you and I say protect you. But it's a false promise.

SPEAKER_03 44:57

And and and if you think about it, it's because we're all fallible. Um and so maybe it is a a want or a genuine promise and if they fall short of it, it could be. But I think about like even in like the counseling office with um when people come in and talk about the relationships with with their moms and and who mom is you know there there is that that caring nurturing side and what really comes up for me is sometimes I wonder if maybe that mother archetype helps us understand attachment since we come out of we're in her womb. We come out of her womb she she is the first heartbeat voice presence we're aware of right so it's that attachment and then if she's absent if she's avoidant not present how does that affect our attachment and our relationships with other people just forever in a word forever that's all yeah so it makes sense why that mother archetype in in storytelling in life becomes an interesting symbol really well it's everything.

SPEAKER_00 46:14

I mean you remember that Andrea said it is your first relationship and I thought she was talking about differentiating but you literally don't even realize you're a separate organism or psyche from your mother. That's a differentiation right there. And she corrected me and said well we have all kinds of separation and differentiation throughout life but I think it's everything and I will say as much as I put my mom on a pedestal I truly think I hit the lottery like she was everything you would want a mother to be she wasn't the neglecting mother or uh the one that'll eat your children and I have another friend again no naming of names but everything he writes is like holy crap what where did his mother drop the ball he has such a negative frankly um what's it called like misogynistic view of women that I just didn't wasn't exposed to but it said so much about him. So I will go to my grave saying I struck the lottery hit the lottery but I also know I had to put her on a pedestal because my dad was an alcoholic. So I needed a a good character in that story you know and then years later when I realized well that's not even realistic. She's faulted she's human that's silly and then I was mad at her for 10 years for not protecting me you know from the alcoholism and all of that. So the bottom line is I think the older you get the more it's water under the bridge and then when there's so little time left right you don't want to blame anybody right that comes with I think emotional maturation and spiritual evolution is we're all doing the best we can right and um all that matters is the moment and transforming the moment and everything else is uh water under the bridge as I said what do you think of that I mean maybe you didn't have any complaints about your parents but I think your 20s are kind of about figuring out what makes you tick and diagnosing and yeah blaming then we maybe grow out of that. Yeah and I and I think it goes back to that fact which is why I talked about the the three phases of of womanhood is we forget that fallible piece because you're right we we have that symbiotic relationship with mom and so we it's hard to see her any other way right so so having flaws is not one of them or do or do we take or do we take them well right well I do think it's again we should have Andrea back on because this is not I have no business chiming in but I do feel you know that patriarchy is on its way out we're not you know balance would be the goal right in society and if we have all the archetypes inside of us sorry but men have a nurturing aspect it just looks different. It takes the form of protecting the family unit or sometimes being a warrior but actually being a protector so you name the quality inherent in the human condition and I'll show you the male version and the female version. But I do think obviously patriarchy hasn't worked for hundreds of years and we're ushering it out toward balance not toward everybody being henpecked or losing their like all of this is a backlash right when you talk about toxic masculinity and um all these crazy things that I don't know just demonstrate that men are terrified and they're digging in their heels and trying to preserve some fantasy about masculinity clearly it's a last ditch effort in the face of what's called evolution.

Jung, Inner Parts, The Architect

SPEAKER_03 49:50

Yeah and and and speaking of that because I know you talk a lot not a lot but you do bring him up because he's definitely um a character in history that has talked a lot about archetypes which is Carol Jung and and in Jungian um philosophy um is definitely out there alive and well and I love that you just brought up the protector the warrior and the critic because there's a modality out there um that bridges off of that called internal family systems talking about how we have these inner archetypes within ourselves um all of all of us have all the archetypes I mean we we might name them different things so to pick on the matrix who who didn't have original I never thought about that by the way until like I I going back listening to the chapter I started chuckling I'm like you know what I never thought about it watching that movie and I'm going but you're so right they did they did not get original because I was being a little facetious but yeah I was being facetious that they didn't even bother giving her a name she's just the Oracle you know might as well name her the voice of wisdom.

SPEAKER_00 50:56

Yeah well it's like the architect which is where I was going to go right right right I mean so how how do you see that archetype the architect um when when it comes to looking at the meaning of that particular role well again the seeker you know I I employed the the quintessential architect which is daedaless so I spent a lot of time you know developing daedaless and I think the God archetype and the architect and the mad scientist they can all go hand in hand and maybe what if they all exist inside of us they are in varying degrees and sometimes they're dueling aspects of our psyches right so whenever I hear like an Enneagram what do you call it Enneagram uh profile or your type A you're type B I always think okay well we're all human and uh I don't like categorizing I think if you can find all of it in all of us it's just about you know what do I want to nurture in myself or what's the ratio and everything's a gamut anyway right so with Daedalus I guess I've I think it breaks down and I don't I do have the book in front of me but I'm not going to take our time to open it. But I know there's all these subcategories that uh you know subsequent Jungian psychologists have added to the main categories. So I think there's the disillusioning God that's the one that sticks out for me like the archetype the uh inventor or architect archetype is sometimes the God archetype and sometimes it is disillusioning right when you meet up with God in the form of the great oz it's pretty just disappointing right and so that's the one in science fiction that I am fascinated by. When you do come face to face with God is God just out to propagate right is he chewing us and spitting us out for the continuity of consciousness right or does he love us?

SPEAKER_03 53:06

Huge disparity there when you come I don't know if I'm off topic but with animals it's fascinating is it love or do they just want treats like what is at the core of the universe what is intelligence what is can collective intelligence some people believe there's love at the core of everything other people think it's dog eat dog and they've adopted that Darwinian thing about what was meant to be survival of the most adaptable but has become competition survival of the most uh what is it survival of the fittest I think life is a I don't know I'm off topic life is a roar shark test everything is what you make it by okay see ya well so here's here's here's something that and it was interesting going back and re-listening to the chapter and it popped into my head and even heard you heard you right now I was like yep it's still it's still circulating in my brain is when we come across that architect um archetype yeah I I can see that those questions come in but then I'm going if you do become disillusioned then what happens then we start to we need to fill in right that void to fill in that disillusionment so then like through rationalization or better examples maybe well I'm going is that maybe where we start to where where progressivism starts to pop back in where we're looking for that that opportunity that growth explain explain that a little more progressivism. Yeah where we we're progress you know we're so we so growth starts so we want to fill it in so we go through that growth cycle which allows us to become progressive which moves us toward progressivism moves us toward speaking okay somewhere else I I don't always know what you're prompting me to say I hope I deliver especially if it comes from the book but here's it's coming back to me if you know the rage comes out in Seth so there's something to address you know the counselors at school if nobody else are like this kid needs to address his issues when the truth comes out about again it's it has to do with uh uh yeah his mom literally like the Moses arc type putting him in a basket in the LA wash and then leaving the planet um but when he gets to the bottom of that rage actually what gets him past the disillusionment is forgiveness that was the key right in the interior realm uh it's all symbology and there's a riddle thing and it's oh okay it's forgiveness but some people need to forgive the world for disappointing them so you're not wrong it's the beginning I guess progressivism is a word I wasn't familiar with but it is the beginning of growth and transformation you got to have something to address to grow as you we talk about every week on this podcast right so maybe um anyway in that case it turned out to be forgiveness if the rage surfaces you're disillusioned you can diagnose it and identify it it's usually forgiveness that resonate at all or yeah which goes back to that question of what you said you know some people think you know love's at this and everything some people think is it for survival of the fit fittest forgiveness it's which makes me you know go back to it's I which honestly and I I don't know see if this sits with you when I think of archetypes it's the meaning that we assign to those archetypes as we learn how we're relating to them yeah well I guess in the book I talk about how um you know highly emotional experiences are what get mapped on our worldview or our value system for survival.

SPEAKER_00 56:50

So that you know future generations don't have to get bitten by a snake. They see a certain shape and they know to walk the other way right or they see certain color and they know to walk the other way. It's not hard and fast but it's pretty helpful. And then we add to that database with our own personal experiences. And then we're the only organism that can add to that database with implanted ideas from socialization or ill-founded gossip right we can listen and vicariously adopt other people's opinions and it happens all day every day just look at our politics. Anyway if that's all true um I do think everything's I'm not an empiricist by any means but everything is for our propagation and our survival frankly and so if we're mapping all these values all day every day based on highly emotional experiences that just speaks to how powerful storytelling is in shaping

Curiosity Versus Stagnation

SPEAKER_00 57:47

those values. I don't know where I'm going with this but I guess I had I'll tell a story maybe that'll help me out of this I I recently had you know kids run up to Bowie all the time and either the parents try to you know find it a teachable moment and say you don't just run up to a dog you got to respect them but depending on the neighborhood you know there the ratio of parents that do their job and the ones that don't astound me. And so when they don't I think oh what's that? Um so I thought well my siblings and I straight off the gate seem to have respect for animals and was it taught or is it just our core nature? And then I thought nah it couldn't be true. My parents must have taught us to respect animals because how is that how does that contribute to survival that is not a a good instinct to run right up to a pit bull and somebody explained to me and you know you're in the field you can tell me if it's true or not but the curiosity instinct trumps the self-preservation instinct and I thought oh I'm down with that I love that because it's it's what you just said earlier in this episode that we start out intellectually curious and then we learn all the thing you know all the the ways to package the variety and the novelty and all the dendrite movement that life has to offer we learn what category to put it in. We learn what to avoid right we learn the rules and we have to relearn intellectual curiosity later in life yeah and I and that's I I totally agree with that. Um so it was redeeming to me sorry it was redeeming to me to think of it that way oh well children will risk getting bitten by a pit bull just because curiosity is innate in the human condition.

SPEAKER_03 59:39

Wow that's cool yeah yeah and and I think it's when we lose curiosity that um we stagnate in many ways and begin to die what's what's the ex what's the extreme of that or or if you think about it when curiosity so to to bridge us into the other two topics that did come up in the chapter is when we lose the curiosity I think with the archetypes it it it it's that reflective part right when we when we have archetypes put in front of us it it it causes that curiosity it causes us to question and and and wonder where when we stop having that we just take it at face value and and lose that curiosity and just go with well this is what I was told then what happens we fall into tropes and stereotypes yeah but what I I you know Renee asked a similar question on one of our episodes and she said well you know something like that what if I stop not just being intellectually curious but what if I stop um my cycles which are just opportunities for growth right all of our cycles even if we're learning the same lesson over and over again crisis is opportunity and she goes well what if I just stopped and I said I don't know you tell me what did you come to and I don't know neither of us could think of anything other than you begin to die. So am I being dramatic no I mean and and and of course you know you can go in that philosophical like what do you mean by saying death I mean is it a conscious death is it a physical death is it both I mean who knows I mean but yeah I mean you stagnate when we stagnate I so there's well but then health will follow I just my little personal yeah and you're not and and there's truth to that um because I mean you think about there's there's a difference between I'm gonna I'm gonna use the golden error years um you know you got you got the you got the the older person um whatever gender they are sitting out there on the rocking chair and if that's all they do every day um gonna pick up pick on up a little bit you know you got Carl right and he's out there he's he's he's out there in his rocking chair and he's he said like you know all this stuff's being built around my house and I'm mad and I can't make a change and so he stagnates he doesn't see opportunity doesn't see growth he just sees it just is and therefore gets harder and harder right and he's got his walker and he can't move around as as much and then you know um you have Russell who shows up who brings in that innocence and that wonder back into his life and so you know Carl what do you by the end of the movie is Carl using his walker by the way everybody no his walker's gone why because he's he's growing and he's changing and so I think that's what happened because he gets that wonder and curiosity. So yeah I think stagnation does it does put us into you know Carl Sauerby was out to get him right you know these young whippersnappers they just don't understand they don't have that wisdom where I think when we always approach things with that curiosity that wanting to understand basically I I always say like turning that kaleidoscope to see the new patterns that that merge. Because that's one thing I think um you know going going to the the human psyche and and and our nervous system that that helps give us those signals of cues of safety is we look for pattern recognition. And if we see the same pattern recognition over and over again it's very easy for us to get into that cycle of well this is just it what else is there? And then we get hopeless.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:17

Yes well I talk about entropy too if I do a nameless prints three the first one was about overcoming disillusionment second one was about overcoming uh futility but what about entropy just we get tired the forces begin to weigh on us in every way with life and uh who knows you know we're not meant to live forever but I think what we're saying is you know and it's a big premise of the book that the evolution of our noosphere meaning the invisible realm of our ideas collectively is as important as the evolution of our biology we would have become extinct a long time ago if our thought forms didn't evolve so maybe on the individual level you know it's been said a lot lately that um stress equals inflammation inflammation equals disease um disease doesn't always equal death but quite often if if not goes it goes unchecked. Yeah exactly and so it's just called the mind body spirit connection we all know if we don't it's a vicious cycle if we don't get exercise our thoughts follow and we fall into depression or if we fall into depression then we're not as likely to get out and get that novelty or you know that change of scenery there's so many ways to put it but I think you know our episodes always do come back to love right and then they always come back to just mind body spirit balance balance is the key folks anyway I do I want to say this like we're going off into some interesting areas and even if they don't um correlate with ideas in the book we already did that episode like I don't need to reread the book so I kind of like some of the implications that we're now exploring I I love the new territory we've gotten into yeah well and I mean we've always talked about too when we do these roundtables we don't want to just rehash what's in the book because exactly you said go go read go listen to that chapter we've got that episode out there while it is interesting though how these conversations new themes do develop and on second listen you're like oh my god it was depending on what's going on in our lives they seem to develop themes so I'm gonna take a through one thread and we can you know bring this to a close very soon but just something that's been on my radar I talked about you know that kid approaching bowie and thinking that doesn't serve survival that's the opposite because Bowie's a thank god he's a nice pit bull right but um I loved hearing that um intellectual curiosity or simple curiosity does trump self-preservation and maybe that curiosity is what we need to um I don't know maintain in life you look at Jane Vaughn as my goddess so I think of her constantly reinventing herself and um there's a lot of older you know share not that she's the epitome of intellectual curiosity but she does reinvent herself I think she stays fresh so when we look at examples of people that maintain a quality of life not that we're meant to live forever but they maintain a quality of life it's often just they value that novelty they value intellectual curiosity and reinvention.

Figurative Thinking And Imagination

SPEAKER_00 1:06:33

So they're more likely to take those spiritual opportunities in the form of a crisis for example and yes make meaning out of it to bring back um logotherapy and all that. Anyway, so the thing that's been on my mind lately is, and I think it came up today in a million ways, and it's this is the thread for me. I am an artist, I'm also a very linear, logical dude, and I was raised that way. So I there were many decades where people had to, especially women, maybe they're the keepers of this, I don't know. But the women in my life were frustrated by how very linear I was and logical, and they would introduce chaos just to test me. You know, I'm speculating here, but the crazy women in my life were like annoyed by my linear masculinity, and they would often just try to introduce chaos and thank God for that. And what comes with it? Well, poetry, the nonlinear, the absurd, all the richness in life, right? And so if you buy any of that, and I know they're possibly stereotypes, but maybe archetypes. Um, for me, then when I did become less linear, the staunch empiricists in my life appeared. The roommates that would leave out, you know, popular science on the coffee table because I was so wacky to them. And so a lot, it was always men in my life that seemed to be annoyed by the meaning making that artists dwell in, right? And so I just came today, this morning, came to this opinion that yes, you can't send rockets into space or build bridges unless you can reel in your dot connecting, your meaning making, the figurative in life. So archetypes are figurative, largely. Storytelling is full of figurative language, not literal language. Sorry if I'm all over the place, but I saw a little meme on Insta the other day, not a meme, but a video about I think it was Meryl Streep talking about a role she played. Oh no, it was a clip from a role that she played. And she's like, Welp, it happened. They put the word literal in the dictionary as misused. So people nowadays go, oh my god, literally. Oh my god, I wanted to, I jumped out a window literally. So people have a fast, loose and fast relationship with figurative versus literal. Does that make sense, Virginia?

SPEAKER_02 1:09:08

Oh, yeah, absolutely. And I fully agree.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:11

Yeah, well, yeah, I think we should retain the meaning of the word literally. But my point is, for many decades now, I've valued the figurative in life. So, yes, I'm sure I hyperbolize. Oh my god, it exploded with the power of a million sons. And somebody else, I had an editor go, did it really? Like, did it really a million sons? And I had to explain, well, well, I thought my voice was more mature than that, that you wouldn't question whether it was literal or figurative. Point is, I just know some men in my life, and they've given me articles to read and they've sent me to podcasts because I'm too wacky for them. But isn't some of the richness in life lost when you stop seeing archetypes, you stop making connections, you stop connecting dots, you stop meaning making, right? In that logotherapy sense, what's left? I think politics, for example, when you get into rhetorical territory, it's very dangerous, and there's a lot of responsibility there. So I'm of the mindset: if I need to build a bridge or send a rocket into space, I'm gonna adhere to empiricism. The rest of it, which is known as life, is only rich when we see the figurative nature, right? Of a metaphor. I'm just a proponent of living life and dwelling in the realm of the figurative. Is any of that resonating for you?

SPEAKER_03 1:10:39

Yeah, when when I hear that, what what I what comes up for me is when we when we focus on the literal, like this is literally a door, you know. Um, and you open and you close it and you walk through it, and and so it has function. We lose the perspective if we don't look at it figuratively, like well, it's a door, but it's a door that we can do pathways choice and swap you through the door because right, it's a great example. Because if we just look at like, yeah, this is how you get into that room and leave that room, we're like, that's my only choice is if you go, wait, I open this door and there's all these other rooms and there's all these other hallways, and then all of a sudden it becomes this this opportunity opportunity for growth. For growth, yeah. So we become opportunistic versus shutdown.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:30

I love it. It's so funny you would use the door example because the way it occurred to me this morning on a potty walk, of course, was exactly that. I was listening to this episode, I mean to the reading of chapter three in preparation for this episode, and I was thinking about the bridge in that meta, you know, in that exercise. And I thought, we, you know, most of the students came up with things like connection, agreement, um, contract, uh, passage, all the obvious things. But I thought we use it in everyday language in the vernacular, even colloquialisms and expressions will say, Well, I build bridges, you know, and then that implies, well, a mental comportment, is that French or English? Like a mental mindset is thought of as, oh, we were in different places. You know, when we had a relationship, we were just in different places. And then the bridge is how do you, you know, connect one geographic area to the next? So I love that you use the door example because life is just full of opportunities to learn and grow if you see the symbolism, if you choose to see that bird as a harbinger of death, you know, or whatever the Native Americans said about the wild turkey in Tehachepi, you know, I I put that in my mom's um, and what do you call it? I did a tribute to her at her services. And yes, a wild turkey appeared right after she passed. And lo and behold, not just Native American tradition, but the tribe right there in Tehachepi said it's there to take her, you know, across that border. So I don't know. I just think life would be less rich if we didn't acknowledge the figurative. But also, yeah, like you're saying, maybe we would miss out on learning opportunities or opportunities for growth.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:18

Yeah, absolutely. And going back to um what you're saying as well, I mean, which is again part of the essence of our podcast here on language of the soul, is when we don't allow ourselves to be curious and we don't look at things in that figurative sense, and we go into the literal mindset, right? And we just go with literal definitions using that bridge. We're not building those bridges, we start to see that divide and that diversity happen, and we see the Grand Canyon instead.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:53

You know what? And it's occurring to me right now, it's called imagination, you know, and maybe we need more imagination societally to get us out of this mess. We need more imagination. Is this a good

Aspirational Stories And Closing

SPEAKER_00 1:14:06

place to end it on?

SPEAKER_03 1:14:07

I think so.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:08

How how long have we been going?

SPEAKER_03 1:14:10

Uh almost an hour and a half.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:13

Okay, I think we're good, but I I'm so tempted. Like maybe another episode we'll talk about the heated rivalry thing that I sent you. I know you didn't have time to look at it, but you know, the aspirational storytelling that's become the norm. Yeah, um, a lot of people are saying heated rivalry is almost um healing because they set up situations and then lo and behold, the worst possible outcome that you're imagining never comes to pass. It's always the empowering one. And so aspirational, which I've talked about a lot, seems to be a trend, and I hope it keeps up because if storytelling is what evolves even our politics and our codes, then we need to be telling these aspirational stories. That'll be another episode.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:00

Yes, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:02

Well, thank you. Thanks for finding the time. I know you're incredibly busy, but it was good for me.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:07

Oh, I've I've missed being here with you. I've missed our audience that that listens to us, and um, hopefully they'll keep sharing our podcast because it's been nice seeing that grow too.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:19

Well, let's keep it up.

unknown 1:15:21

Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:22

All right, have a great rest of the day.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:25

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:25

Okay, thank you. And to our listeners, remember life is story, and we can get our hands in the clay individually and collectively. We can tell a new story. See you next time.