Atheism and the meaning of life - what drives you?

[The Grand Nudger]

Permanence. The ability to refer to those moments; to continue to be a subject who can apprehend events without an expiration date.

If you don't live forever, in short....life has no meaning?  Meaning can't be a thing that mortal creatures can only temporarily grasp for themselves?  It has to be different than everything else?  How is this different than the claim that without a heaven, there's no meaning to life?  

Lemme ask you this, if there's no meaning in life, how would living, forever, create it?

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(as I sit here and try to put myself into the mindset - presuming there was no meaning in or to life...I don't think it would matter if I lived a day knowing that or an eternity - it seems tragic without regards to the frame of time, but tragedy implies meaning all over again...and..arguably, an eternity would be worse...so...meh. Maybe we could split a baby? Perhaps whatever meaning there is to life, if there is any, isn't guaranteed to avoid something terrible. Death or impermanence through poor or failing health may be part of a full understanding of the meaning of a life. A human one, at least. Also, clearly, a thing you wish to avoid. What others ways do you avoid or deal with or even try to outengineer your own impermanence? I notice you've been talking about family when you consider these things. Might be related? A description of biology is a description of how genetics attempt to cheat death, as creatures we're powerfully driven to play our part in this (hopefully) eternal game of hopscotch. Good track record so far..every single one of us alive today exists in relation to an unbroken chain of life. Alot of what people talk about when they refer to meaning ends up boiling down to stuff like that. Here, to me anyway, it seems like you're commenting not that life has no meaning, but that all of the meaning it does have that you do see is cheapened or deprived in some way by our inability to hold on to it forever. I think our impermanence and frailty make us even more precious, and make those moments we can hold more deeply profound.

Granted, I'm a huge sucker for life affirming messages and content, so....it could all be pure self delusion. I think my death will be as meaningful as my life, and that in death I'll still be a part of that relationship to life, cycled back through life - broken down for parts....death as life's engine and all that, clearing the way for my kids and their kids and their kids kids ad infinitum. Other peoples too, I hope to have created something lasting and meaningful and somebody is going to have to take care of it when I'm gone, or they might want to refer to it when they design their own little slice of meaning. I suppose..to me, that's something like permanence without all the responsibility, lol? That I'll end up (I hope) being present in so many ways and places and things and people - but that the work and maintenance on my end will all be done. I won't have to actively do any of it, anymore.