Hey ,Fall (or autumn) is officially here and it's still ridiculously hot in Chicago!Instead of an update blurb, here's a fun bonus autumn piece:It's Decorative Gourd Season, Motherfuckers (McSweeney's, 3 min read)(Err... warning: this one contains explicit language. You may have already guessed)

Best,Willem

 Weekly Combo Two or three flavours, interesting separately, fascinating together 

Gender is not a spectrum (Aeon, 20 min read)I went back to Aeon this week for this essay gender norms , recent gender denominations, and either debunking the idea of a gender spectrum - or at least calling out that if there is one then it is a universal human experience. If you're interested in looking into philosophical and societal thinking about the nature of sex and gender, this is a great piece. I think juxtaposed with the Oatmeal comic questioning unhappiness it may be an interesting call out to the way in which we seem to automatically need to find meaning in opposing models. As a brand strategist it's a tool I fall on to often, making up some spectrum with opposed words and/or values to provide understanding for the meaning of a product or a brand. For an interesting additional exploring different sides of what masculinity and femininity mean, I recommend the Pansy season of The Heart podcast. It starts with Twirl.How to be Perfectly Unhappy (The Oatmeal, 3-5 min read, comic strip)I'm not sure if this is a recent comic or not (maybe not given it's based on a WSJ article from 2012 and ideas of Flow in psychology), though it is being shared quite a lot online at the moment and I don't think I had read it before. It is a fun though more thoughtful comic as the last few have been. As mentioned above, it's interesting that people assume a binary state of being even though our states of being can arguably be rich and more nuanced that two opposites. It's also easy to assume there's a 'right' or 'better' to be and I like that it is challenged. And the difference with the article above, is that here the idea of a spectrum to happiness or other human experiences is universal, rather than used to set some people aside as exposed in the essay about gender.