CREATIVE ARCHETYPES: THE ORDINARY WORLD TO SPECIAL WORLD SCALE

Are you more feet firmly planted on the ground-core or "I'm just a brainwave floating in space" coded?

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On our endless quest to inculcate more people into the cult of creativity, we created 16 creative archetypes based on four different scales of material, psychic, and existential measurement. Each scale is a sort of fluid spectrum — honestly, almost a circle by the time you get to either pole. In this series, we explain each scale and how it contributes to creative practice.

THE ORDINARY WORLD TO SPECIAL WORLD SCALE

Dorothy crosses the threshold of her windswept house and steps into technicolor Oz — the classic visualization of the Ordinary World to Special World.

Some people are permanent residents of the Special World.

Every coincidence is a portended synchronicity. The air crackles with magic. Messages live embedded in latte foam art, the $44.44 total of a bill, in the tarot card randomly pulled — and it’s up to *you* to discern what they mean.

(BTW, was it by random chance that you pulled that card? Or was it predetermined ✨destiny✨)

In fact, the reason you left your laptop behind on the plane wasn’t due to squiggly brained absentmindedness or because you were distractedly trying to peck out a poem that landed on your shoulder while taxing to the gate in your Notes app…

… having to stay behind at the airport for two extra hours probably saved you from getting in the car with a serial killer Uber driver, or getting into an accident on the freeway, or some other narrowly dodged poor outcome.

Those who inhabit the Special World are well-acquainted with the immense and captivating mysteries that surround them. At their best, they surrender to the unknown and are rewarded with access to wisdom that’s impossible to discover through formulas and logic.

But we all know a Special World dweller who’s lost the plot.

An untethered soul who is just that — untethered, for better or worse. Grounded in nothingness, it’s easy to lose context. You can listen to the messages of Spirit all you want, but what good are they if you don’t *act* on them? Ultimately, inspiration is just wasted potential energy until it becomes a creative act.

Don’t mistake people who score high on the Special World scale as flighty or whimsical or dumb. You can be all of those things no matter where you fall on the spectrum.

Special World people tend toward the existential. There are no final answers to arrive at… only deeper questions to ask. It’s exhausting and thrilling to walk through your day with so much prismatic potential seeping out of every minute, every action, every passing thought and desire.

If everything is a simulacrum, then what is real and true? Does truth matter?

Special World types can get caught in a holding pattern, stuck searching for meaning when meaning-making is found in action.

Special World-leaning archetypes: Magician, Dancer, Inventor, Author, Channel, Shapeshifter, Quicksilver, Star

Ordinary World inhabitants, by comparison, are logical, grounded, touch-it-to-believe-it types.

They saw 2008 Kim Kardashian hawking Skechers’ Shape Ups and said, “No way this girl got that butt with a pair of bosu ball-looking tennis shoes.”

There’s never enough evidence for an Ordinary World person to trust the answer. Card carrying Ordinary World members are methodical and curious. “Why is it this way?” They don’t accept the retort, Because it is. As a society, we need Ordinary Worlders’ dogged investigative skills to unearth the truth.

If the Special World communicates in subtext, the Ordinary World speaks plainly and clearly.

Your brain took a random smattering of bubbles formed in the foam of your latte and created a pattern that at first glance, seems like a dove. But it’s not a dove. It’s milk foam. That’s it.

The $44.44 total on the receipt is funny coincidence, an arbitrary series of numbers and, honestly, way overpriced for the caesar salad and Diet Coke you ordered.

The tarot card randomly pulled doesn’t have a cosmic message; rather, it’s a canvas your unconscious mind projects and memories ideas onto.

And a mistake is just that — a mistake. No need to justify or make meaning of it. Just do better next time.

Ordinary World people are incredible creatives, because they’re devoted to process and practice. They “are doing.” They’re ideal models of resilience and endurance.

But they need to be careful that they don’t become know-it-alls; remember to leave room for curiosity and the unknown. 100% certainty is 100% boring.

Ordinary Worlders hyper-focus on a detail. They can lose the forest for the trees. If Special World dwellers zoom out so far the world becomes an existential concept, OW’ers zoom in on a blade of grass and perseverate over how to cut it as neatly as possible (scissors? razor blade? toe nail clippers? machete?).

Sweating the small stuff obscures the Point Of It All™️ as much as zooming out too far. Mistaking action for progress is common.

Lean too far into the Ordinary World, and you lose faith. At the end of the day, creation is a vote for favor of faith in the future.

Ordinary World-leaning archetypes: Architect, Intellectual, Trailblazer, Reflector, Producer, Innovator, Creatrix, Engineer, Producer

Here’s the thing about these two worlds — they need each other.

classic Special World-to-Ordinary World communicado

The Hero needs the Special World to learn their lessons. But the quest isn’t complete until they return — like Persephone ascending from the Underworld — to the Ordinary World and share what they’ve learned in their trials with humanity.

When you know what side of the spectrum you tend towards, you know your cozy-comfy working place. You also know the medicine you crave — the other end of the spectrum.

Curious about where you fall on the Ordinary World to Special World spectrum? Take the SPACIES Creative Archetype quiz.

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