“Maps of Meaning” (Commentary)
To make the intractable concept of Meaning comprehensible
Peterson has been one of the most significant figures in my life. Learning about him and his philosophy of reality helped me reevaluate my development and reconceptualize my direction(plan) and destination(ideal future). I was going towards my manifestation of “hell on Earth,” metaphorically speaking. His Jungian commentary and psychological perspective of narrative, specifically the Bible, assisted me in coming into reconciliation with religion as something more than spiritual rituals and mysticism. Our collective unconscious plays a major role in our comprehension of reality, even in a world that prioritizes empirical perception. The archetypical constructs found in narrative give us direction, a set of instruction, or at the minimum makes an observation on how we ought to act in life or how we do act in accordance the objects that posses affect of meaning, circling back to our collective unconscious.
Not going to lie, this is a VERY DENSE book. Each word is meticulously placed with intention and purpose. This is merely my interpretation of the book as I perceived it. I totally recommend that you watch supplementary information respecting his foundation to better grasp the concepts I’m about to unpack.
If you don’t know who Jordan B. Peterson is a Canadian clinical psychologist and former professor of psychology at the University of Toronto. Heres a great synopsis of his ideology and the premise of the book as a whole.
Instead of continually barraging you with more info we can simply dive into the analysis of the book itself.
Prelude: Descensus ad Inferos
The book begins with a quote that is core to the message of the book:
“Something we cannot see protects us from something we do not understand. The thing we cannot see is culture, in its intrapsychic or internal manifestation. The thing we do not understand is the chaos that gave rise to culture. If the structure of culture is disrupted, unwittingly, chaos returns. We will do anything — ANYTHING — to defend ourselves against that return.”
The title of this preface is called Descensus [Christi] ad Inferos. This is translated to “The descent [of Christ] into hell”. The title so eloquently describes this section. His intellectual and emotional journey is beautifully arranged to represent the process of comprehension that he is describing.
Post-college where he studied political science he began having terrifying and almost paralyzing nightmares surrounding the Cold War. While he was working he begin to study Jungian philosophy. He was completely shocked by our engagement in social conflict and our ability to absolutely decimate not only our enemy but the world. He clung to Jung as he talked about our underlying collective unconscious conceive archetypical contents that can cause rationally sane individuals to conjure up the most haunting and mentally disturbing dreams. The parallels from mythology and folklore alongside his own dream allows him to derive the potential solution to his problem.
I distinctly remember reading Peterson state, “. . . beliefs make the world, in a very real way — that is beliefs are the word in a more than metaphysical sense.” Unpacking that truth conflicted me partially, but also resonated with me. If beliefs construct our reality then it is a safe assumption that those beliefs become our identity in which we are willing to maintain, protect, and expand on and that those beliefs can motivate “incomprehensible acts of group fostered aggression”. When he read through Victor Van Frankels, “Man Searching for Meaning” which was a personal account of the draconian acts conducted in the internment camps in Auschwitz.
I will better explain this paragraph in the conclusion. The heinous acts previously conducted and those to occur in the future are necessary prerequisites for the existence of life. Only then can life become seemingly comprehensible and realistically acceptable. Peterson aims to have persuaded you (the reader) to reach the same conclusion by the end of the book. I certainly still struggle with this concept but I hope to simplify his intentionally selective words to bridge the gap of the known and the unknown, in this instance Peterson’s beliefs.
CHAPTER ONE
He begins this chapter with a quote from, I believe to be Nietzsche, that state,
“We need to know four things:
- What there is,
- What to do about what there is,
- That there is a difference between knowing what there is, and knowing what to do about what there is, and
- What that difference is.”
I could have misquoted BUT the importance and premise hold all the same significance.
A portion of the chapter begins with a child who is exploring his environment, or rather “discover[ing] what it is”. The child sees a beautifully made vase standing on a table. As the child reaches for the vase she is immediately intervened by her mother who says “not to touch that object ever”. The baby simultaneously encountered the object in two states, its empirical state (a vase, a thing), and its more significant socioculturally-determined status (something the mother adores and regards highly). The “status of the object” becomes its meaning and by extension our implications of behavior regarding that object.
He uses medieval mythology, specifically the proto-science was known as alchemy as an example to better narrate his explanation for objects significance regarding our affect. The sun is alchemically shared with gold. However, alchemists correlate the sun with red and copper which Nietzche describes being related to Set, the Egyptian god. Set, like Lucifer, have a sulphuric aroma associated with them which alchemically derives from copper and the color red. The two are to be symbolically correlated with evil. Therefore, further proving Peterson’s theory of objects having “intrinsic” empirical meaning (scientifically) but also affect meaning (narrative).
Narrative can capture our emotions or beliefs more effectively and I believe Peterson argues exclusively. Science has stipped the affect from perception and reduced our experiences to the apprehensible features of objects. This has placed humans in a more vulnerable state as we are submissive to our unconscious systems of evaluation for our environment and its things.
Peterson argues that the world is built from beliefs with objects of empirical description (science) but is a forum for action (narrative). The two domains of science and narrative have not been well distinguished, and often seems to be at odds, science & religion as an excellent example. If we remember that objects have two meanings: empirical, and sociocultural-determined significance; then an empirical description of objects cannot provide a holistic guide for life and certainly cannot instruct us on how to behave. This is why mythology, literature, drama are so significant. Jung had it right, and Peterson’s ability to pair the two leads our ability to finally understand meaning, especially in an age of empirical description. The world’s greatest dramatic narratives (bible, etc) give us a comprehensible understanding of our affect towards things in life, they teach and make an observation on how we ought to conduct ourselves in the forum of action that is life.
The best way I can describe this is by using a Christian analogy. The traditional Christian notion (not exclusively Christian) is that man has “fallen” from grace. Mans current morally depraved and emotionally unbearable condition catalyzes him to seek the ability to “return to paradise” (Eden, Heaven, etc). This establishes the “meta-myth” that is giving direction, or rather, instruction a “plan of action” (plan or instructions) for man to behave and conduct himself in the “forum of action”, life (current) to attain the desired “kingdom of God”, in an ideal future (Future).
This commonality appeared across every culture in every continent where man resides. This is because the underlining unconscious is continually seeking respite caused by the eternally self-conscious which leads to eternal sufferance from his existence.
Not going to lie this schematic is dense as well. It “begins” where is “ends”. Peterson explains it best and I’ll do my best to commentate of his explanation. He says that if we act like children it is completely appropriate in the condition of childhood. The process of maturation changes those set conditions. The introduction of anomalies confronts you (chaos) where certainty once stood. This prompts you to change plans (how you should act) and even reconceptualize your destination (what should be or the ideal future).
The known (our current story) protects us from the unknown (chaos) by building a predictable construct for us to use to determinate a “plan of action”. Simply put, too much known equates the susceptibility to chaos as the domain of the unknown will find itself seeping into our “plan of action”. This is when panic is induced and the main reason why we cling to what we understand, we are too unprepared for the unexpected that will undoubtedly appear. This is stagnation. The inverse of stagnation is too much modification. Adjusting too much induces chaos. The balance between the two dichotomies is not so simple. We can always expect chaos as it is omnipresent, and coming to realization with that truth can help foster our reconceptualization for determining new “plans of action” to our “ideal future.”
WOAAAAH that is REALLY LOADED. I hope this makes sense because it only gets crazier from here. Reread this section and feel free to DM me on Instagram about this. This is book was deep and dense with significance. I am still writing and reading supplementary information regarding this book, and subject as a whole for that matter, but the abstract concept is still very much elusive to me.
CHAPTER TWO: Maps of Meaning
Chapter two did a great deal on deconstructing our neuropsychology as it pertains to the phenomenology of our experience. If we considered Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs to be axiomatically correct, then we can safely assume that thirst, hunger, shelter, and other physiological needs are at the phylogenetic root of our brain. This core root is our unconscious motives for action and our primary motivation receptors. Our genetic evolutionary goal is to survive and reproduce. All of the brain’s sub-systems are capable of working and achieving independent goals but work together on achieving both survival and reproduction. The brain must regulate emotions and co-exist (the sub-systems) to satisfy those goals of the overall being (firstly physiological, then more thereafter), and co-exist with other beings — and their goals.
I love this chapter because of this particular topic on the brain. Memory is something that fascinates me. Our capacity to remember is not the problem, our inability to willfully call each memory on command is the difficulty. The degeneration of our memory, as observes in Alzheimer’s, is the main obstacle that we encounter with memory. When we can’t remember something we typically don’t remember how to CALL that memory. Imagine you are listening to an old song, smell a dish that is prepared a certain way or any other sensory input that triggers a memory you may have “forgot”. Anyway, I digress.
Peterson goes into great detail on how our brain processes and remembers successful behavior patterns to satisfy our goals or our collective goals (firstly, physiological). Then we observe other individuals and remember their patterns and modify our own. It is these patterns that are translated into stories and later narratives. Archetypical characters in narratives tend to resonate well with us because it hits the phylogenetic root of our brain. We recognized patterns of behaviors in our surrounding and those patterns have been engraved in our neuropsychology through the Long-Term Potentiation and various other neurological mechanisms.
The brain is split into two modes of operation, as argued by Peterson. We have a normal life which is the current state (A) heading towards an ideal future (B). The normal life goal-directed yet emotionally mediated. Therefore new information can act as reinforcement, either positively with reward or lack of punishment (a reward in itself), or inversely threatened with punishment. Consequently, we are left with an option to continue with our “plan of action” or make revisions to correct the model. The second mode that the brain operates under is called the Revolutionary Life. When the current model or “plan of action” is severely disrupted by a state of unexpected and anomaly emotions like fear and panic are induced as we are being confronted by chaos or the unknown. Our current model fails completely and we are rendered to a state of incomprehensibleness. This unknown or chaos is the underlying construct of our world. We are consumed and submerged in the unknown and this archetype is common throughout narrative. We can look back at Fig 2 to view the chaos reintegrating into our model with a different perspective.
As we developed the empirical status of objects we began to describe the world using objective categorization. However, as we discovered the sociocultural significance of objects we know that the brain began to aggregate objects and experiences together based on shared significance. Peterson starts to bring up the main archetype of the narrative that is life, at least from the brains perspective. There are 3 “constituent elements of experience”. The first is the known which is assimilated with culture and characterized as the “Great Father” who can be both a tyrant and a protector. Next is the unknown, often characterized as the “Great Mother” and is synonymous to chaos. She is often characterized as someone who can be nurturing yet destructive. Lastly, we have the knower or the hero (or antihero). The hero personifies the exploratory process and is often the conciliator of the two great parents.
In figure 17: The Constituent Elements of Experience of the book, you can see the antediluvian “world great parents” are enveloped by the chaos that is the ultimate source and destination of things or often symbolically represented as the divine. You can notice that there is is an extreme valence for each “category”. Often narratives have categorical inclusion or exclusion in accordance with valence, as represented here:
Figure 18: The Positive Constituent Elements of Experience, Personified shows the Great Mother embodied by God giving birth to Christ or the Knower. This personified version of the Constituents Elements of Experience may appear in paradoxical juxtaposition to the Christian “sequence of generation” but the “Vierge Ouvrante” places Mary, “The Great Mother” of Christ “The Divine Son; The Knower” in superordinate to God the “Great Father” but the positioning is perfectly valid from a mythological perspective, at least.
Peterson focuses primarily on Sumerian mythology towards the end of the chapter. The Myth demonstrates the dynamics of the “constituents elements of experience” by creating a “story of stories”, something that is commonly discovered in other mythology such as Egyptian, Greecian Roman, Astecian, Mayan, etc. The commonality of cultures in juxtaposition are erected from a single similar narrative: Paradise (Eden), encountered with chaos (the unknown, The Devil), the fall (unbearable current state), and redemption (the knower, Christ, “plan of action”).
CHAPTER THREE: Apprenticeship and Enculturation
Peterson personifies the enculturation of children through the archetype of apprenticeship, more specifically from the great father: a tyrannical protector. If we consider, “Subjugation to lawful authority might more reasonably be considered in light of the metaphor of the apprenticeship,” as an axiomatic truth then we can presuppose the Great Father to symbolically represent the law. Inoculating children through membership through group fostered identity helps protect them prior to maturation. The capacity to abide by social rules, regardless of the disciplines (religious, dogmatic, cultural traditions, etc) allow for the preservation of predictability, self-maintenance, and above all; order. Therefore, the Great Father becomes tyrannical by attempting to conserve systems and is willing to crush those He serves.
Jean Piaget, a Swiss psychologist focused on childhood development. He observed that children assimilated to culture through “acting out” in play cultural behavior of adults and other children. The evolutionary psychology surfaces as “emergent properties of social interactions” manifest.
In Christianity, we act out (dramatize or episodic representation) the enculturation as a concept of rebirthing through the ritual of baptism. Read this excerpt from Peterson:
“The font of the church, which contains the baptismal water, is a symbolic analog of the uterus (the uterus ecclesiastiae), which is the “original” place that transforms precosmogonic chaos into spirit-embodied matter (into “personality”). When the initiate is plunged into (now sprinkled with) baptismal water, he or she is symbolically reduced, from insufficient stability to chaos; is drowned as a profane being, and then resurrected; is re-united (incestuously, mythically speaking) with the Great Mother, then reborn formally into the community of the spirit.”
The purpose of the “apprenticeship” is to inculcate the child with culture, teach them disciplines as they transition into adulthood, and make them predictable to others. Culture protects us from the Unknown.
The drawback is when the “law” is conducted through “total imitation” governing every detail of daily life. This reduces the ability for society to become flexible to the changing environment and makes the society (and individuals that construct it) susceptible to the intense vulnerability of environmental transformation, which ultimately can be pathological. Therefore, Peterson suggests that the apprentice is well-trained with the skills from the dead (rituals, behavioral pattern, social constructs) but is well equipped with the living intelligence to become dynamic throughout life, not to be rigid and “stuck in one’s ways”.
Chapter Four: The Appearance of Anomaly
If we step back and consider evolutionary psychology we can make some safe assumptions: our moral foundations can are constructed from thousands of years of human interactions. Therefore these models are “hardwired” into our minds into models of behavior.
We cannot simply call this embedded wisdom or behavioral information at will, so we act it out and represent it through play and ritual. From there we gravitate towards more abstract thought like narrative, drama, mythology, religion, and ultimately philosophy. The significance of the maps for meaning is to create predictable behavior and help protect us from the unknown. We generate these models with paradigm layers partially conscious but mainly unconscious. When the introduction of anomalous information disrupts one of our layers, we quickly realize that our models are incomplete. Encounters with the unknown are symbolically represented with barbarians, the dark forest, dark waters, serpents, and such, but the encounter can simply be the reintroduction of new information from strangers or strange ideas that challenge our current models.
Going back to Piaget, we act out behaviors even if we have no semantic knowledge or have not produced such behaviors on an individual level. Because we (the individual) are nested in the outer level of the Paradigmatic Structure of the Known we “act out” historically-conditioned personalities, as schematically represented here:
Peterson deconstructs Buddha mythology and uses this schematic to help represent how the story operates. Let’s break down Fig 52 first. The emergence of existential anxiety catalyzes unbearable suffering by disintegration form society within. The “savior” consciously makes the decision to have voluntary contact with anomaly, or “descend into the underworld”. Since he is the hero, there are axiomatic truths, such that the descent was successful. As a result, the hero returns with treasures of newly gained processed information from the Unknown or Chaos that could benefit the society as a whole with proper reincorporation. Even though the hero has positive intentions fear of “contamination” with the unknown will provoke many to despise him or even hate him, especially if they are “unconscious” with his motivation for voluntary contact with the unknown or chaos. The introduction of the newly gained information can (and typically does) benefit the society as a whole, as a result, the society performs an inevitable social change, which is typically substantial. This thrusts individuals into “involuntary descent” into the underworld (Unknown) which is tremendously dangerous, especially if the individual has not identified themselves with the hero. The result, they cannot distinguish between the “savior” and the “dragon” of chaos. The schematic can be seen here.
Gautama’s (Great) father, is both the protector and tyrant placing him in the Garden (paradise). The command to never leave places the object of sanctity in paradoxical-juxtaposition as the forbidden command places the “dragon of chaos” into the object with our innate curiosity, so to speak. His voluntary decision to explore the unknown (the vast forest) is his disintegration into chaos and introduction with anomaly. “The Buddha attains nirvana, perfection, as a consequence of his ordeal, and is offered the option of remaining in that state by the God of Death.” He rejects the offer and “returns” to the known as a contaminated hero. This threw society into involuntary descent however, this time with identification to the hero; Buddha. Social Ascent and reintegration made society a whole — adapted to the anomoly that is the Unknown.
We must not forget that tyrannical powers may hate (mainly fear) the hero. This is seen with Jesus form the jews and Pharisees. The reason is that culture keeps society and its individuals predictable. However, the homogeneity keeps society rigid and is the inducement for its ultimate failure and collapse.
Chapter Five: The Hostile Brother
The encounter with anomaly, or the unknown, motivates two patterns of behavior to manifest; the hero (“savior”, benevolent) and the advisory (embodiment of evil, destroyer, malevolent). The positive valence of the knower is the hero. He courageously plunges himself into the unknown, fights against social constructs in acts of altruism and ultimately with the intention to better society as a whole with the ascent of integration from chaos (the unknown). The contradistinction of the hero (the archetypical savior) is the adversary. The adversarial being is proud of his repudiation of the unknown, intentionally fails to transcend and transform society. His hatred for the virtuous and courageous stimulates his desire to disseminate darkness where light could be (enlightenment, known). The Adversary denies reality, has a desire to make everything suffer eternally for the outrage of its eternal existence and unbearable suffering. The scary thing from this book that I read was that we are always the adversary with the ability to be the hero. The Adversarial tendencies are an intrapsychic feature of the individual.
Peterson asks several rhetorical questions, mainly alluding to the tyranny and adversarial tendencies that Hitler possessed. He asks and answers this question:
Granted the opportunity, how many of us would not be Hitlers? Assuming we had the ambition, dedication and power of organization — which is highly unlikely. The paucity of skill, however, does not constitute moral virtue.
The knower or individual posses qualities of both the adversary and the hero. What differentiates the hero from the adversary is that the hero knows that they are capable of extreme malevolence but decide to repent against it and desire to serve society. Therefore the phrase “never forget” actually means “ know thyself,” which “means recognize and understand that evil twin, that mortal enemy, who is part and parcel of every individual.”
The Devil was the “Highest Angel” in God’s Kingdom. Peterson states that “reason” should very well be considered the “Highest Angel”, as an archetype. Reason (the “Highest Angel”) is the “most remarkable and developed psychological […] faculty, characterized of all men.” If we consider that as an axiomatic truth then we can conclude that reason is most susceptible to temptation by its own capacity to self admire and self-recognize, commonly affiliated with pride. Reason’s remarkable ability and its recognition of that ability leads it to believe that God is useless or replaceable.
Because of tremendous pride, possessed by reason (The Highest Angel, The Devil), the intrinsic desire to be ultimately right suggests the innate characteristic to deny inadequacies. The devil will endlessly deny because it is afraid and weak. The Devil is the spirit of denial thus rejecting the “redeeming unknown” and sequentially adopts a rigid self-identification, unmoved.
The main catalyst of the adversary is the lie. This seemed to be the main mantra of the chapter. The lie appeared to catapult an individual into the evil domain. The lie is the voluntary rejection of what is currently known to be true, which is ignorance. The liar builds his own game with his own rules and still cheats. Cheating is the result of failure to mature properly, its the rejection of consciousness itself. The lie takes denial one step ahead and states the failure to explore the unknown and update its current model. A liar who fails to explore the unknown realm voluntarily renders himself an individual incapable of heroism. Because the liar (the devil) does not see the fundamental benefit of admitting their own failures, insufficiencies, and/or weaknesses they also don’t care for others.
Anxiety is induced by the anomaly, therefore the liar despises it. Tyranny stems from the desire to preserve culturally-determined systems for affect-regulation. Consequently, The Adversary (The liar, the devil) tries to first avoid and then actively suppress any behavior patterns to evokes the feeling of anxiety or more descriptively introduction of anomaly. Identification with the liar aphoristically correlates the life as something unbearable, or gradually more unbearable as the “threat to intolerable to face” slowly expands its domain over time.
Conclusion: The Divinity of Interest
Peterson wraps up the book with this excerpt, “This is the message that everyone wants to hear. Risk your security. Face the unknown. Quit lying to yourself, and do what your heart truly tells you to do. You will be better for it, and so will the world.” The phenomena of interest (curiosity), in which behavior is predicated on, signifies the potential for “beneficial” anomaly. Anomaly (Chaos, Unknown) has both a positive and negative valence. Positive aspects can dominate when contact with the unknown is voluntary, as seen with Christ. The “world”, however, can quickly become destabilized when involuntary contact with the unknown threatens.
The spirit of interest is the beckoning (Christian) from the unknown, meaning is the pursuit of the individual — meaning pursuit of development, which is recognizing the unknown and the error within yourself; meaning identification with the hero.
Jordan begins reciting his accounts as a clinical psychologist, and specifically an extraction from a patient in particular who suffered from varying ranges of schizophrenia. He believed that his decisions between good and evil catalyzed the horrors of the cold war. Peterson obviously knew that his patient was delusional, but he still believed that some aspects were “true”, at least metaphorically speaking. He later wrestled with the concept and came to the conclusion that humans are not so innocent, or harmless. This revelation engendered him to then begin to differentiate tragedy from evil.
The two words are commonly used interchangeably, however, Peterson argues the difference between the two are found from necessary preconditions for life, and intentionally expanding the domain of innocent pain and suffering, respectively. Tragedy is the subjection of mortal conditions, limitations. True Evil is the action of spreading malevolence. He uses Christ as an analogy, once again. Christ is freely able to choose fate (as is all mankind) yet fully chooses to participate in fate (which aligns him with God). It is this identity with God that “strips him of all evil”. Conversely, tragic conditions can appear evil because of our ability to demean our own character. He further argues that life is like a game, rules are necessary (preconditions, tragedy). He insinuates, “Maybe existence wouldn’t be possible, in the absence of our painful limitations.”
Suffering isn’t the consequence of limitations, existence is. Like Christ, we have the ability to voluntary bear the tragedy (oppression, rules, preconditions) that we face. However, we let the Devil seep into our lives and deny our capacity to bear the immense weight of our mortality, we diminish our ability to grow and soon become inept mainly because we are afraid of responsibility, and possibility. Therefore, value without polarity insists that good is predicated on the existence of evil, especially if you are to have the ability to choose between two options (which constitutes a real choice). Tragedy is necessary for life to contain meaning. Evil occurs when we lie, cheat, deny, and reject the unknown. Evil is not recognizing the need for tragedy and not accepting or seeking anomaly, unknown knowledge, self-conscious illumination (ignorance); or the rejection of the unknown out of fear of responsibilities. The motivation for Evil the need for group identification is to be protected from the unknown.
Therefore, You are commanded to “Love God (Order), with all thy mind, and all thy acts, and all thy heart.” Serve truth (God), love your neighbor (altruism), with all your heart (pure intentions).
The fall represents our capacity for heightened consciousness and our irremediable knowledge of our vulnerability and mortality. Re-establishment towards paradise (What should be) is attained through christ alone, or as the meta-myth suggests, living the manifestation of an exemplory life. The fall and redemption represent our dissatisfaction for current life and our desire to move towards a “better future” (what should be). The fall is the development of human self-consciousness which makes us aware of the tragedy, an event that doomed humanity to suffer eternally and introduced the concept of our death. The same fall allowed for our ability to seek meaning, interest, explore, adopt the role of the redemptive hero.
Tragedy for the individual is unbearable, the world and human experience is Evil, this is true if the knower believes the lie if the knower “denies” or “repressed” recognition and above all else individual responsibility or “divinity” (ability to explore the unknown, find novel and re-birth, bearing the Cross).
Childhood, enculturation is the ability to explore under the umbrella of protection from the world parents.
The dragon of chaos is the limiting factor for the individual pursuit. The hero places himself in direct opposition with the dragon, voluntarily. The liar denies that the danger exists altogether, and to his peril stunts his development.
Abandonment of meaning in life is subjection to pain and suffering without recourse, tragedy, without redemption or hope. Anxiety induces and life is rendered unbearable by pride and revenge against the world is constituted.
The re-birth is re-establishment of interest, of meaning for the individual. The process gradually moves the individual (now hero) incrementally closer towards the border of the known and unknown (voluntarily) where novelty can manifest. This action expands adaptive competence.
The self-conscious is the awareness of personal vulnerabilities (and mortality). The recognition of our vulnerabilities and weakness is necessary to be transformed into a strength.
Those who hate their weaknesses (themselves) hate life because of the absence of meaning. This identification with destructive powers is manifested by such hatred. Therefore, the purpose of life is to pursue meaning. The spread light on darkness, broaden consciousness of the unknown — in spite of our mortal limitation. Meaningful events (Novelty) occur on the cusp of chaos and order. The gradual exposure to the unknown, to chaos, is subjective contact towards an individuals pursuit for meaning, for interest.
The meta-myth in religion (Especially Christianity) is the voluntary adoption of explority pursuit into the abyss, the unknown, into the domain of chaos, without self-deception will eventually lead a man to his identity with “God”. This revealed identity will allow him to withstand the tragedy of life.
Meaning is the greatest instinct that makes life possible
The abandonment of meaning makes life unbearable, Evil. The individual loses the redemptive power thus propelling an individual to develop a hatred for life and wish for its ultimate destruction.
If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you.If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.
He ends the book by stating, “The lie is the central act in this drama of corruption” and quotes the non-conical The Gospel of Thomas, which tbh I couldn’t unwrap it all that well. All I could interpret was, seek and you shall find, you cannot hide something, as it will reveal itself. Explore inside and out, only then will you find the kingdom of God, and do not lie.
