A Meaning to Life?

Sometimes I ponder the meaning of life and the only thing I ever come up with is death. Cynical as it sounds death is really the only thing that gives life meaning, perhaps saying that death is the meaning of life is redundant. Because there is no life without death, "something that can die" would seem to be a logical definition of life. Of course the quite obvious meaning of life would be 42, but, thats too simple and an irrelevant answer.

So if death is not the meaning of life, then what is the meaning of life?

Many would point to god or another divine force and say look no further for a meaning to life. Which would seem self-defeating saying that life only has meaning due to a higher power who's existence we can never be sure of. Granted we can never be sure of our own existence, yet it seems to me that at the very least we think and we are aware that we think. So having ruled out, death, 42 and any sort of high power, the choices for a meaning to life are narrowed not at all. Thus making that sentence and this one entirely useless.

Back to the meaning of life, happiness would seem to be another idealistic suggestion, but, happiness is defined by sadness. Without sadness we wouldn't know what happiness is, because if you only experience one emotion you would never know the difference. Which having said that it appears that besides 42, every meaning of life will have a perfectly reasonable rationale against it. Perhaps there is no meaning to life and thousands of lifetimes been wasted for something that never really existed in the first place. Which from an empirical standpoint would appear to be correct. What is life, but atoms. Fundamentally the keyboard I am typing on and my flesh and blood are made of the same materials, electrons, protons, neutrons and all those other things making up the atom. Yet the keyboard doesn't move of its own volition, it doesn't think and neither does it live (by a biological definition). So there is inevitably a difference between the keyboard and me, so comparing one's self to inanimate objects is also pointless. When the meaning of life comes to consciousness is until recently the enigma of scientists and the godsend for religious fundamentalists. Thought we have always assumed set us apart from animals, yet recently it has been shown that animals do quite probably think and why not, we're animals too.

So perhaps there isn't any deep meaning philosophical meaning to life, perhaps life is just meant to be lived. Regardless of whether or not there is a meaning to life, any life on this Earth can be quite easily taken as insignificant. Regardless of how much an impact any person has on the Earth, even if they could destroy all life on the Earth what would it really, truly affect. The universe is infinitely vast and still growing, not only this, but several billion years old. Perhaps there is some mysterious meaning to life that we have yet to uncover. As romantic as a viewpoint that sounds it is something far to tenuous to grasp onto. What everything comes down to is life, as we know it and as it is lived. Life is quite simply life. Meaning can be anything, but looking for one all encompassing meaning to life is foolish and time consuming. Instead simply live life as it comes one day at a time, making what can be made of an infinitely small amount of time.