Maps of Meaning, Lesson 1: The World as Forum for Action

Introducing “Wednesday Wisdom”

My goal for this email series:

I love learning, and I love you. We are all fighting on behalf of Team Good, and the more skillfully we can master ourselves, the more we will have to contribute to the people we serve. Our modern lives are increasingly busy, distracting, and overwhelming. I believe the antidote to modern living is to be found in some very ancient ideas.

My goal is to take the lessons I learn from my study and share them in an organized, accessible, and immediately applicable way so that you can use ancient wisdom to make your life better.

The format:

Each lesson will consist of a video, a write up about the video, and a summary. Each lesson will continue to build upon the last, so that we can gain momentum in our education and derive wisdom from our experience.

Lesson #1 – Introduction to Maps of Meaning by Jordan Peterson: The world as forum for action

Jordan Peterson’s Maps of Meaning, I believe, is one of the most worthwhile and necessary books ever written. Though it is not the book’s explicit aim, Maps of Meaning is the best description of the behavioral process of the archetypal hero which has ever been written.

Clearly understanding this book gives one a lens through which to profitably interpret the wide array of books about the hero’s journey, which to be quite honest, can be very difficult to read. Over the next two months (longer, if necessary) we will address the core principles in this book so that you can apply them to your life, to live an extraordinary life, without having to do the heavy lifting of reading.

“The world can be validly construed as a forum for action, or as place of things.”

This is the foundation upon which the entire books rests. The world as a place of things is the domain of the sciences. The world as a forum for action is the domain of the humanities. We do not much care about the world as a place of things; what we are desperately concerned with is how to best act in the world. It is these actions which comprise our own hero’s journey.

Consider the following image which is the singular unit of story (and the narrative we constantly live in):

We know where we are. We have an idea of what will be better. So we take action which we believe will lead to the fulfillment of our desire for a better present. The things we encounter along that journey – people, ideas, flowers and traffic jams are either:

• Tools – that which aid us on our path
• Obstacles – that which impede our path
• Irrelevances – that which does not affect our path (most things)

The value of these entities is produced solely in relation to our goal. That which aids our path produces positive emotion, that which impedes our path produces negative emotion. We are much more concerned with how the world affects our path than what the world is made of.

This is the framework in which all story is nested. This is the lens through which we will together explore the concept of the hero, which I deeply believe, is the most empowering idea I have ever come across.

Summary:

We view the world as a forum for action much more than as a place of things.

It is our goal, the ideal future we create in our minds and move toward with our actions, which determines the positive and negative value of all things in our lives, as well as that which provides A MAP FOR OUR LIVES. Therefore, we had better know what our goal is. Once we do, the world becomes clear, and we have the opportunity to be the hero: to encounter novelty in the most productive way.

This will be the focus for our second lesson, and underlying theme throughout the next two months, and an idea that can radically transform your life once understood.

See you next week!