Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief

by Jordan B. Peterson

The "way" is the path oflife and its purpose.23 More accurately, the content of the way is the specific path of life. The form of the way, its most fundamental aspect, is the apparently intrinsic or heritable possibility of positing or ofbeing guided by a central idea. This apparently intrinsic form finds its expression in the tendency of each individual, generation after generation, to first ask and subsequently seek an answer to the question "what is the meaning of life?" The central notion of the way underlies manifestation of four more specific myths, or c1asses of myths, and provides a more complete answer, in dramatic form, to the three questions posed previously [what is the nature (meaning, the significance) of current being?, to what (desirable) end should that state be moving? and, finally, what are the processes by wh ich the present state might be transformed into that wh ich is desired?] The four c1asses inc1ude: (1) myths describing a current or pre-existent stable state (sometimes a paradise, sometimes a tyranny); (2) myths describing the emergence of something anomalous, unexpected, threatening and promising into this initial state; (3) myths describing the dissolution of the pre-existent stable state into chaos, as a consequence of the anomalous or unexpected occurrence; (4) myths describing the regeneration of stability [paradise regained (or, tyranny regenerated)], from the chaotic mixture of dissolute previous experience and anomalous information.