What's the meaning of life?

“There is no meaning of life. Life gives meaning to the universe.”

To ask the meaning of life, is in my mind, to be oblivious to your nature, as one possessing life. While in the moment, this question can leave one feeling overwhelmed, it's simply because we are asking the question backwards.

When you observe what we consider life to be, it's obvious as to why we feel the question is unanswerable. Consider this, if life did not exist, would anything in the universe have meaning?

By asking the antithesis of our original question, a resounding truth echos forward. Without life, the universe would be devoid of meaning. For without life, there would be no force to ascribe meaning in the first place. Consider the meaning of taking a bath, is to bathe, but without something to bathe, bath loses its meaning. It instead becomes a tub of water, which with no purpose, tub becomes synonymous with a bucket.

So without being anymore esoteric, why then has this ancient question gone unanswered for so long? Because
on a universal scale, life becomes synonymous with meaning. So we’ve spent generations asking; “what is the meaning of meaning?” Thus we have our answer. The meaning of life, is to be meaningful, and give meaning to that without.

So you may be saying to yourself, “that’s all fine and well for we sentient life forms, but what’s the meaning of ALL life.” To which I’d like to simply respond, “who says we truly know what life is sentient, and what life’s not?” but I know that won’t be good enough for most.

While the underlying neural correlates of intelligence and emotions are strongly defined physically, we have no way of measuring other life form’s projection of a subjective experience. We can only observe the behaviors of other lifeforms, and make assumptions on very limited data. And when it comes to other life forms, we’re all sociopaths.

By which I mean, we’re completely incapable of empathizing with other life forms. The closest we can achieve is sympathy, from which arise our tendency to anthropomorphize other life-forms. We've never truly understood animals, only deluding ourselves into the belief that we do.

Ultimately, the reality is, there is no one true meaning. Rather there is collective meaning. The meaning I apply to soil, and the meaning a tree applies to soil are one and the same. Both equally applying their meaning to the universe, with or without words.

So if you've had a particularly shitty day, just remind yourself, you give meaning to this universe. Thus, you are incredibly valuable and meaningful in your own right.