I think Sam Harris had the right idea when he said (don’t have the link unfortunately) that asking about the meaning of life is just bad philosophy. No one who is genuinely content asks about the meaning of life. No one is like “well I feel genuine fulfillment and don’t crave anything, but I just gotta know, what’s the meaning of everything?” Meaning is a thing you ask about if you feel dissatisfied. (And tbqh that’s kinda apparent from your OP.)
So at the real risk of annoying you (by being paternalizing/not-actually-aswering-your-question), I think asking about meaning is the wrong approach altogether. The thing that, if you had it, would make it feel like you’ve solved your problem, is fulfillment. (Which I’m using in a technical way but it’s essentially happiness + absence of craving.) I’d look into meditation, especially equanimity practice.
That said, I think re-framing your life as feeling like it has more of a purpose isn’t generally pointless (even though it’s not really well-defined or attacking the root of the problem). But seems difficult in your case since your object-level beliefs about where we’re headed seem genuinely grim.
I think Sam Harris had the right idea when he said (don’t have the link unfortunately) that asking about the meaning of life is just bad philosophy. No one who is genuinely content asks about the meaning of life. No one is like “well I feel genuine fulfillment and don’t crave anything, but I just gotta know, what’s the meaning of everything?” Meaning is a thing you ask about if you feel dissatisfied. (And tbqh that’s kinda apparent from your OP.)
So at the real risk of annoying you (by being paternalizing/not-actually-aswering-your-question), I think asking about meaning is the wrong approach altogether. The thing that, if you had it, would make it feel like you’ve solved your problem, is fulfillment. (Which I’m using in a technical way but it’s essentially happiness + absence of craving.) I’d look into meditation, especially equanimity practice.
That said, I think re-framing your life as feeling like it has more of a purpose isn’t generally pointless (even though it’s not really well-defined or attacking the root of the problem). But seems difficult in your case since your object-level beliefs about where we’re headed seem genuinely grim.