Let's Say I Achieve "Meaning." What Do I Do Next?

[InquiringMind]

InquiringMind, please, please don't let anyone here change you. And stick around. Some of us, well, I, appreciate you.

Thanks. I appreciate your comments 

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I know you're not a fan of evolutionary psychology, so I'll just present this as my own pet theory for you to speculate on.

I believe some of the first-order approximations of evolutionary psychology, i.e. we are afraid of some things because they are dangerous.  But when people start getting into explanations about why blue eyes are usually considered more attractive than brown eyes, or why "parental investment theory" explains why people choose certain partners over others and explains people's motivation for cheating on their partner, I just don't think there's enough evidence to support the claims that are being made.  I believe such claims at about a 30% confidence level, which to me isn't enough to be publishable as good science.  

So if you're talking about the "mild dissatisfaction" theory, where people who were never fully satisfied with their lives were more likely to survive and reproduce, I don't know if that's any better of an explanation for why people seek meaning than the explanation that corporations want us to be dissatisfied with our lives so they can sell us more stuff.  

The explanation of conservation/exploration does seem to help explain a little, but whether or not that's how we actually evolved is hard to say, because we don't have the hard data. It might give me a little bit of direction in what to do, though. If I'm feeling dissatisfied (which I am) then it might be time for a little exploration, and it might be time to try some things that I've never tried before. The life I have now is the result of everything I have done, thought, and felt in the past. So if I want something different, I have to do something different.