If Life is Meaningless Anyway, then What's Wrong with Religion?

[Angrboda]

You've got the telescope trained on the idea that ordinary things can't be meaningful because there's no big 'S'.  I think you've deluded yourself by believing meaning doesn't exist as much as you'd deluded yourself into believing there was a sky daddy.  I don't think we can escape meaning in this life.  It is the water we swim in, so much so that we are distressed by its absence, or seeming absence.  I think perhaps if you concentrated less on the big S and more on the small s'es, you'd be a lot happier.  Epicurean things like good friends, satisfying work, good food, an occasional novelty to spice things up.  In short, I think you're mistaken in believing that life has no meaning; I think you're surrounded by it.  You've just chosen to focus on this idea that life has no meaning.  And I think that's distorting things for you.  We are built by evolution to experience meaningful things in a vast variety of ways.  That you are experiencing a low in your sensus meaningfullitis is no reason to jump to the conclusion that meaning doesn't exist.  I think you're mistaken.  I think it does.

This may be true, but aren't you struggling with finding meaning - with a small "m" - yourself?

I don't really struggle with the 'm' meaning aspect in terms of wondering if my life has meaning. I struggle with the emptiness in my life, and my seeming to be unable to fill it with anything. If I'd get up and get out more, like I did this past week, it wouldn't seem so empty. But the majority of days I lack the motivation to get myself ready and find something to go out to do. I used to be involved in meetup.com groups a lot, going to an event or two each week. But the color of such events has changed. They're more purely social than they used to be, and I'm rather shy. I used to go to book clubs, but I haven't had the interest in reading this past year. If I could get myself to just do things, I wouldn't stress over whether what I was doing is meaningful or not. I stress about the fact that I'm doing so little these days.