Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief

by Jordan B. Peterson

The meaning we attribute to objects or situations is not stable. What is important to one man is not necessarily important to another; likewise, the needs and desires of the child differ from those of the adult. The meaning of things depends to a profound and ultimately undeterminable degree upon the relationship of those things to the goal we currently have in mind. Meaning shifts when goals change. Such change necessarily transforms the contingent expectations and desires that accompany those goals. We experience "things" personally and idiosyncratically, despite broad interpersonal agreement about the value of things. The goals we pursue singly-the outcomes we expect and desire as individualsdetermine the meaning of our experience. The existential psychotherapist Viktor Frankl relates a story from his experiences as a Nazi death camp inmate that makes this point most strikingly: