Meaning-making

The activity by which individuals and societies construct significance, purpose, and narrative coherence out of raw experience — a concept central to existentialist philosophy and twentieth-century psychology. For thinkers like Viktor Frankl, Albert Camus, and Jean-Paul Sartre, the human predicament begins with a universe indifferent to human concerns; the work of being a person is to project meaning onto that blank canvas through commitments, projects, relationships, or revolt. In literature, meaning-making often appears as the contrast between protagonists who construct purpose out of obsession (Ahab and the white whale) and those who hold the void at arm's length through inquiry or community. The concept overlaps with but is distinct from finding meaning: it foregrounds the constructive, often arbitrary work of the meaning-maker, which leaves open the question of whether some meanings are better, truer, or more sustaining than others.

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