It's greatly disappointing and quite depressing to conclude that life has no meaning. We give life meaning

Yeah, and most of the times that sucks

I agree .. I see people die every day at work .. life is definitely the meaning you give to it

Meaning is derived from ourselves and our expectations. What happens is people 'think' that life has failed them somehow when things don't work out as expected. The dissappointment leads to depression.
When we understand that life is just the state of being alive it allows us to persist with less expectations and fewer dissappointments.

A person in a completely vegatative state still has life. By this reasoning, Life requires no special meaning to be. It just is, until it isn't.
Everything else, everything...is how we conduct ourselves while we experience living.
The meaning and purpose is of 'self' not life.

The sense of 'self' is constantly changing, updating as we exist. The meaning is meant to be fluid and adaptive to the changes we experience.
Placing meaning on life is dangerous, can lead to suicide when expectations don't work out (for some).

Life itself is simple, its our minds that are complex.

Riddle me this. If there is no meaning to life, what is the point of living? We need life to have meaning in order to carry on. Humans are separate from other organisms and animals and beings on the planet because their life has a purpose. We have a conscience and inherent morals which separate us from animals and other sentient beings. We also have intellectual abilities and reasoning which make us realize that there is more to life than just merely existing. All these unique human traits and abilities and desires are cluing us in that there is actually more to life. Otherwise, we wouldn't have these thoughts and feelings. We have a higher purpose in the universe. People who pride themselves on being logical dismiss these feelings as meaningless. Then you are missing the big picture. I cannot specifically tell you what the higher purpose is but my gut and intuition and conscience tells me that there is more to this world than readily visible. Life is a mystery but it is definitely not without a higher purpose. Dismissing such powerful feelings within yourself or explaining them away is cheating yourself from achieving your own greatness. We fear our own powers because we do not understand them.

Yep.

what is the point of living?
Who says it has to have a point other than being in a state of existence.
Life is a mystery
I don't see life as a mystery?

All the things you list are things that are created and valued in the mind. An attempt to box up and lable the state of living.
I understand why people do this. Reality is harsh, cold and final.
People tend to try to soften reality and it helps them deal with what they experience while they are alive. Life is just life, everything else is perception of reality while experiencing life. You can take all that stuff away and still be alive. Meaning is not a requirement to existing. Life is required to exist.
I know a man that has been in a coma for over 10 years. He has no meaning to life, yet he is alive. Life without meaning does exist and that fortifies the concept that life has no meaning. If it needed meaning, that man would have died 10 years ago. If he wakes tomorrow, his mind may create a meaning but it is not going to be a meaning to life. It will be his own concept assigned to deal with the experience of being alive.

Or conversely, if life was meaningless, the comatose man would have died 10 years ago. There is a reason he is still alive, a meaningful reason. The mysteries of life. I would never assume that I know so much about the universe that I just dismiss life as meaningless. There is so much that we do not know and may never know. It behooves all of us to keep an open mind. Even the most brilliant scientists, who are mostly atheists, never completely dismissed the existence of God because in their wisdom they understood that anything is possible. The human mind just cannot completely grasp the vastness and the greatness of the universe.

^^^ What she said (double post) gggggrrrrrr

Yes, life happens anyway, but some people sense that there's more to it than living and dying.
And no they're not crazy. That sort of stuff has to be cultivated, experienced carefully.

The poster (supreme) may be trying to express a similar idea.

My version of the meaning of life:

To keep on keeping on. To Be.

Like all life forms from trees, lichen and jellyfish to extremophiles and higher mammals - eat, procreate, and continue on in generations if possible !

Us humans tend to get distracted along the way and make a bit of a mess, but we also over do it with over population, while reducing many other species' ability to have their own meaning of life, and survive.

Pretty much anything beyond sustenance and procreation is culture, which is often substituted for meaning.

There were experiences which I have had personally which makes me ponder. A man came up to me and told me to have my blood checked, that I would need surgery. I didn't believe him. I thought he was off his rocker. It turns out that he was right. The police hired this person to track down missing people and solve cold cases. He is psychic. I thought the whole profession was bogus but I realize that some have gifts or extra sensory abilities to see the future. Another case in point is my brother's ex-fiancé could see the future and she had healing powers. She was addicted to drugs and she was in despair. She attempted suicide and ended up meeting Michael the angel, her personal angel, in heaven. He is my personal angel as well. We all have personal angels watching over us. He told her that it was not her time and made her sign a pact to go back and help people and gave her the ability to heal people. She helped my aunt with her pain by just touching her. My brother's fiancé had no healing powers before she almost died. She also gained the ability to see the future. There are many similar inexplicable experiences and cases which logic and reason cannot elucidate. That's why I always keep an open mind. Cynicism and dismissal will only keep people ignorant and in the dark.

This and the rest of what you said in this thread is powerful and so true to me.... Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I agree and see life having meaning and a higher purpose... each of us is an important part or piece of the overall purpose and we each have our own individual purpose.

Life is a *****, and then we die ...

... so I thought, before a sunshine came back into my life

You live that space of time called LIFE as you want and decide; your life has a certain meaning IF you decide give to it by...your actions,words,way of thinking and decisions.

Life can have a sense for you or not; you decide that. All those people you mentioned who died young; all of them decided the style of life they want to live. Some had accidents or casualties? ..yes! But; in general; they lived the life they decided with all the wrongs and the rights.

SupremeMe1, My discussion isn't intended to dissuade anyone from their own beliefs. It is only to point out that there is a distinction between the reality and the perception. It was my own near death experience that caused me to see the separation.
It was my fight with suicide that caused me to sort out the difference between my perception of what life is and what life is.
I call it stripping away my delusions about life.

I personally find contentment in how I see it now.
The meaning of me is not contingent on some grand meaning of life that sets the standard of who I am. I set the standard of who I am.
I'm no longer forcing myself to compare who I am with who life means me to be. The power of my destiny is with me not life.

I'm no longer driven by a concept of having to fulfill a requirement for me to have meaning.
I'm not afraid of death.
Death is inevitable.
I don't have things I have to do before I die.
I have things I do that define me.
My past experiences give me wisdom and create the person I am right now.
I'm not compelled to measure myself against some grand meaning to my existence. I measure myself against my own morals and values, which I establish, not life.

My point is what if you are wrong and there is a higher purpose. It would be best to keep an open mind because there are signs everywhere and we choose to ignore them.