Poll on the meaning of life

[JA]

There's no inherent meaning to life because there's nothing that pre-exists your individual life to give it some prescribed meaning. Each of us, as individuals, must decide for ourselves what our life means and what purpose we should give it. The truth, as far as I can discern, is simply that we, as humans, crave meaning and purpose as a way to reconcile the conflicting duality of our identity: our symbolic self and our material self. Our material self decays and dies; turning into food for maggots. How can we, being constantly conscious of our own mortality, accept that we're tied to something that'll simply die one day and everything about ourselves, aside from what we've made and the memories we leave for others, will disappear forever? Thus, we try to invent some objective meaning to life or some prescribed purpose, yet, in reality, none of that exists.

So the only solution is to create your own sense of meaning or purpose in life, one that you invent for yourself that gives you a reason to wake up and embrace life every day. Or, you can simply embrace that life has no meaning and live with the absurdity of a meaningless world with a mind that wants to persevere past death.