Not for a lack of trying, I assure you. It’s just that no matter how hard I try, my mind won’t accept it.
The thought of life and existence being ultimately meaningless (Something else my mind fights against, despite knowing it’s true) is too much of a blow to my psyche to overcome and look at light-heartedly.
I’m just so desperate to have a purpose and meaning in my life, but at the same time I can’t sincerely believe in any religion or afterlife. I try to “live in the moment” and “be happy and make others happy”, but it just isn’t enough. I need something more.
Edit: Thank you everyone for their responses so far, I do read them all. They give me something to ponder and think about, maybe even leading to a solution.
The universe has a flow to it that we don’t fully understand. Science has not advanced to the point where we can answer the question of why things happen in the way that they do. However, we do know that life itself appears to be a contradiction. Life flows in the opposite direction of the universe as a whole while also being inextricably part of it. We’re like an eddy caught up in the cosmic tide.
The things we value as human are a reflection of this reality. Our natural inclination to value life, fear death, build community, and our curiosity are a natural consequence of material phenomena. Understanding how and why they come to be is part of developing a consciousness that can help to ease the chaotic relationship we as living things have with the entropic progression of our universe.
This perspective isn’t neither nihilist nor absurdist. It does not reject the concept of meaning out of hand but instead seeks to understand how and why we create meaning. It also does not dismiss the contradictions present in the world but instead seeks to build an understanding of the world that resolves them. It’s just what I understand to be dialectical materialism.