[Serious] Literal and Not Literal

[Belacqua]

How many people trouble themselves with meaning when survival is convincingly imperiled but can still plausibly be fought for and maintained?   The dominant priority becomes clear when only one of the two two can sought.  

I guess we just have different feelings about the world. 

I don't feel my survival is imperiled, that I have to fight for it daily. Yes, I agree that if I were under attack by aliens I would stop playing and try to survive. 

There are existential threats, of course. Climate change is real. 

At basic level of reality effecting humans the search for meaning is the idle indulgence  in a set of tertiary urges ultimately implanted by the quirk of the genetics of neurological circuitry whose dominant shaping factor had always been adaptation to the need for survival.

It may be that a strong instinct to survive by manipulating the natural world to serve us is a good and useful thing that remains strong even when it's accomplished its goal. 

I mean, if you have everything you need, maybe it makes sense to stop manipulating the natural world and just enjoy yourself -- appreciate the natural world for what it is, rather than what you can make it produce. The unreasonable continuation of the desire to produce useful stuff means that we go on to produce stuff we don't actually need. And then we'll burn down Brazil in order to have cool leather goods and thick steaks. 

I think that a wise life would be to stop producing once you've got enough stuff, and enjoy the beauty in what there is.