Asklemmy

I prefer not having a meaning of life.

Imagine having a real purpose. Then the question would still be "why", but you'd also have that obligation to do.

If there's no point, why not have fun?

Learn. Evolve. Improve one's mind. Understand more of the universe. Gain a greater understanding of one's place in the universe. Grow beyond what we understand and comprehend existence at this point.

what else can you do? we are because we am

It's up to you to create your own purpose in life.

In my view, connection with others and the happiness and joy we can find in that is the reason for living.

It's what makes the world so terrifying that there are so many broken people who just want to hurt and dominate others and have no care for depth of connection. Because they are wasting their lives on accumulation of power and are painfully obviously deeply sad and broken people.

Sam Altman has his own issues, but he's dead-on when talking about someone like Elon Musk:

“Probably his whole life is from a position of insecurity. I feel for the guy,” Altman said. “I don’t think he’s, like, a happy person. I do feel for him.”

So find people, find connections with them, make your life about your connection with others. That's my suggestion. Love is scary, but also freeing. Will that be a struggle with the obligations we face? Sure, but not impossible, especially if you do your best to set clear boundaries and focus on your family and friends as opposed to the soul crushing job you work to be able to take care of yourself.

One of my favorite films is Dead Man. It's a "buddy movie" about the importance of friendship and the unlikely places we find it. Two men who have been rejected by their respective societies find friendship, trust, and kinship in each other. I think this may be worth a watch for you.

If something happens after we die, what’s the point of it all?

No matter if anything happens after death or not, or what happens, we can not know and we don’t seem to be able to comprehend it either way. So we can not know if what we have got is comparatively good or bad. The only thing left is to make the best of it. Because why not?

What do we owe to each other? For coexistence without inherent meaning in an afterlife, is the only source of moral good the social contract that we've made with each other to coexist peacefully? What are the bounds of that contract? What are the terms of our coexistence?

Because the alternative would be having no happiness at all.

People in the future will wonder the thing. Kind of like a cosmic rickroll

A) There is no point.

B) The point is whatever you want, whatever you value.

C) Somebody keeps living after you, so "the point" is to pass things forward because "something" happens, to somebody else after you die. We inherit everything from our ancestors.

D) How should I know?

While happiness might need reason, life doesn't. I find that, in a way, we live in a probabilistic universe with enough attractors that allowed things to form. Among them were humans, now also building some things with/against the odds, and subsequent self-image/sense of importance.

You can still suspend thinking about the inevitability of death and inherent lack of meaning to feel or create something. It does require one to choose and get comfortable making choices that are beyond right and wrong (not in a moral sense), however.

I don't know if there is one answer for why people can still feel happy despite it all, and I suspect there will be different reasons. One reason could be that they've just accepted the futility, focusing on what makes them happy. Or maybe they've accepted that pursuing universality/objectivism when it comes to subjective things is impossible. Or maybe even that no matter which option one takes to view life, one cannot escape delusions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVbKHNNWOUg

Give it a try of you really want to know...

There is no purpose but to be alive, or rather, you make your own purpose.

I simply believe that it's not the destination what matters, but the journey and what you do in it.

I just got a haircut, ate an ice cream while listening to Lady Gaga, had a nice soup for lunch and tomorrow I take the day off after a long and stressful work week. My meaning is in those details.

Why not? One good ability I've heard is why watch a movie or listen to music or play a game if you know it's going to end? No one and nothing is it's best all the time, just understanding that there are some things that can be worth experiencing is the best life has to offer, really.

Its like running a marathon: you do it for the journey, not for the medal at the end.

(Disclaimer: you do it for the medal. But you would do it anyway, even if there is no medal, because its the journey that makes it worthwhile)

The chances that there this nothing waiting for us after death are laughably slim, especially as we make more discoveries about death and quantum phenomenon

Read into NDEs

If that’s the case, a Buddhist would have nothing to worry about! And a Christian would be in shambles I guess.

Thinking there's something after death seems to make people lose sight of this world and fail to see the beauty in it, IMO. When I hear religious people ask this question I think their god(s) must feel insulted. Doesn't really answer your full question but that's my thoughts.

Check out Optimistic Nihilism.

The meaning of life is to search for the meaning of life.

So the billionaires can live their best lives, they need pedons to serve them.