[Serious] Literal and Not Literal

[Anomalocaris]

No, I would not let you take my life because that ends my survival.  

Had only meaning been involved I would be indifferent to your taking my life.

People are indeed plagued by the idea of meaning.  The operative word is plague.  It is a widespread affliction to which we are susceptible, but for whose ill effects remedies and cures of various effectiveness are available. A particularly good one is a effective method for deducing and understanding how reality operates and interacts with us.   Just as being diseased is not the goal in life, nor is meaning the goal in life.   Just as disease is deemed so because it is often a barrier to more fundamental goals of life, so often is the idea of meaning.

Why do you want to survive?

Because I do.  I need no justification to want to survive in the same way organism with no capacity whatsoever of forming any idea of justification would want to survive.

So any justification sought in meaning is twaddle.   Base instinct dressed up with outfits in the style of the hour to enable the wearer to compensate for some other perceived short coming with affectation