I'm reading a cool book right now called The Writer's Journey, 2nd Edition, Mythic Structure for Writers. It's by Christopher Vogler, to whom I will extend heartfelt gratitude in my acceptance speech at the Emmy's for my award-winning TV drama series. The book is all about story structure and archetypes and Carl Jung and I think it's just fascinating. (Anyone who studied this stuff in college would likely blow it off as redundant, but as I am self-educated, I love it.)
As he discusses archetypes such as mentors, threshold guardians, and shapeshifters along the Hero's journey, I'm starting to identify these characters in real life and recognize who each archetype is in my reality and how they all have affected my personal Hero journey. It's enlightening to learn how each character can change throughtout the story becoming a different archetype depending on what's required to move the story along. It's also cool to recognize that same change in principle players in real life and to see how a person can one day be a villian and later on be a mentor.
The best part is, the book just makes me feel smarter. And if everything else in it were lacking, that would be enough.