Ask Lemmy

there is no inherent meaning to life.

i choose to continue living each day because a) i am still enjoying myself enough to stick around, b) i'm a chicken and nothing has motivated me to voluntarily face quicker death just yet, c) i am committed to not fucking up my kids in that particular way if i can continue to avoid it, and d) i do work that matters and eases the suffering of others to create meaning for myself.

Meaning is something imposed on reality by consciousness, not something necessarily inherent to existence itself. I am here because here is where I am. What that means to me is that I should have a good time while the opportunity persists because all evidence seems to insist that the chance will not last forever.

So, eat. Be merry. Protect that which moves me and those who can not protect themselves. Help others to do the same. That's the meaning of life to me.

Have experiences and respect other life. That's really it.

The Earth created lifeforms that can understand the universe. Even if there are other conditions out there that can create life like that, it's not common. There is unfathomable empty space between planets and their moons. To say nothing of between planets or stars or galaxies.

Good news! You're one of these rare combinations of matter that can understand the universe. In a real way, we are the universe trying to understand itself. Scientists explore it in a deep way, and should be respected for that, but you don't need a PhD to participate. A single celled organism who figured out better ways to swim in its little pool helped the universe understand itself. The first human to taste a strawberry helped the universe understand itself. Have experiences.

There's a lot of other life also participating in this, and they should be respected, too.

Well, Camus and Sartre are not exactly about finding meaning, but dealing with the world with no inherent meaning.

No advice here, but I suppose it would be rather difficult to argue for objective meaning of life under atheism, which seems prevalent here on lemmy, so I would consider the feasibility of the existentialist project, in creating meaning or living with the condradiction between our desire of meaning and the meaningless world.

I don't think life has any kind of inherent meaning; it simply arose from random physical processes when the conditions were right and took off from there. I keep living mostly because it's kind of the default, and because I don't want to hurt others with my death.

I'm looking forward to lunch tomorrow

The closest thing to meaning I believe in is derived from evolution. Meaning for me is to lift myself and those around me.

Ecclesiastes is a good read. I found "Everything is meaningless" to be very liberating. The book does go on to say what is good: to love God of course, but also to eat, drink and enjoy your work. But the whole thing is worth a read.

I currently live to make life a little better for animals and other people. And when I have time left over I use creative outlets to create stuff.

I don't think there is meaning. I've never read Camus or Sartre and don't really know what determinism is (quick read on Wikipedia, I think I agree with it?), but

I keep living because it makes me feel good for the most part, and because the thought of dying makes me feel bad for the most part.