Scientists and linguists believe that words are not only a window into who we are and how we believe, they also play a role in shaping these things.*
Naomi Bagdonas and Jennifer Aaker
Dan McAdams** is introducing me to the word imagoes for describing
the main characters in our life stories.
These fall into two types:
The agentic and the communal.
The agentic characters are comprised of
warriors, travellers, sages, and makers.
The communal characters of
lovers, caregivers, friends, and ritualists.
It’s likely that we’ll especially prefer one from either of the lists, to
have a sense of self in the larger world and our smaller worlds.^
It strikes me that we find these lists
echoed in different ways.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi writes about our need
for exploration, but also for conservation.^^
Christian Schwarz introduced me to this concept
more than twenty years ago in his interplay of the dynamic and the static.*^
So, I’m wondering whether, not only might we focus on an imago
from one list, but balance this with a supportive imago from the other.
Have a play: choose your two,
Identifying which is prime and which is supporting.
We see how important words can be for seeing
who we are and then shaping who we are.^*
(Important note to self: Always be playful,
Never allow yourself to be trapped by a word, term, or definition.)
*Naomi Bagdonas and Jennifer Aaker’s Humour, Seriously;
**Dan McAdams’ The Stories We Live By;
^We’re unlikely to use these precise words;
^^Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s Creativity;
*^Christian Schwarz’s Paradigm Shift in the Church;
^*Perhaps take 5-10 minutes to free-write why you have chosen these two.
THIN|SILENCE 