I’m not depressed (at the moment, well maybe a little), just feeling philosophical.
Edit: the idea of this came to me because I was pondering why people fight so hard to beat diseases and live a few more years. What are they planning to do? Why exert effort just to be here longer when you don’t have a reason?
Just why?
It seems to me like you are of the opinion that the finiteness of life robs it of meaning. If so, why not contribute to longevity research? It’s only been a couple decades since we learned how telomeres relate to senescence. If enough people work on the problem or donate to it, we very well might be able to crack immortality before you croak. At the very least, that will give you a few more centuries to figure out what the meaning of life is.
You might object that immortality would lead to great wealth inequality, and you’d rather live a finite life than an unfair life. You can only believe this if you believe that the finality of life does not ultimately make life worthless. In which case, why not contribute to the cause of socialism?
I’m asking why people fight to live longer, and you think I’m concerned about the finiteness of life? No. I didn’t say it would have meaning if we didn’t die. My point is, what does life mean? Why want to live forever?
You don’t even begin to address the question.
Then why did you cite that “nothing lasts” as evidence there is no meaning to life?
None of our accomplishments. The great things we do as humans.
World trade center. Library in Alexandra. etc.
Seems likely to me the lunar lander will be there for aeons to come. The pyramids are also still there. The library of Alexandria may have burned, though I don’t think that was inevitable, and many of the written works and treatises from that era still survive. Euclid’s elements is still mathematically correct.
Consider also the negation though – the burning of the library of alexandria still affects us to this day. Aristotle’s views on women and Christianity’s views on homosexuality still persist. Colonialism and slavery over the past millenium has negatively shaped the lives of billions. These are all actions by humans with enormously negative consequences that reverberate in the present. Surely we must admit that these agents had meaningful lives.
And there may have been countless more such catastrophes averted, which we don’t know about because the lack of something bad happening is not terribly newsworthy. But people who stopped such far-reaching catastrophes must surely have had meaningful lives.