Anyone else struggling to find meaning in life and wondering what it's all about?

[Mumonceremoved]

Middle aged and generally just wondering what the point of it all is.

Why are we here?
What's the meaning of life?
What even is happiness?

Anyone else just feeling meh about the day to day drudgery and futility of it all?

Or if you did feel this way, how did you manage to snap out of it?

Is it normal?

I used to give a shit. About everything.

The whole lot of it

I used to have an opinion on everything, could endlessly debate with you the woes of the world. Followed the news, keep up to date with it all.

Socialised, loved being around people, laughing, enjoying myself was my top priority ... if it's not fun why are we doing it?

But that was my youth. My naivety. My innocence.

Too much has happened.
Too much loss.
Too much trauma.
Too much pain

Seen too much of what's wrong with the world..

Society is inherently corrupt and biased towards those who hold the power. It isn't something that can be fixed by debates and the good people doing the right things and fighting the good fight.

So what's the point? In anything?

If the things we love can be ripped from us by an unjust and uncaring society that nothing means anything anymore.

Life just isn't worth living. I just go through the motions because I cannot destroy my children's life by not doing that.

And I know how apathetic that sounds.

I just can't seem to do.anything about it.

I feel like my soul is broken.

And all the nature walks and hobbies and people can't fix it.

Maybe I am beyond fixing.

Your final paragraph has got me worried, my family are miserable buggers 🤣 I hope it won't be too hard-wired in me!

No my life is bollocks. I don’t care about anything aside from my children.

I’ve got multiple health issues that have sprung up from nowhere. I’m going blind for one, nothing anyone can do.

If I wrote down all the shit that’s happened in my life and especially over the last three years I’d be reported as a troll, no one would believe me.

I used to be more positive than this but I’ve always seen through the bullshit. I can’t stand talk of government, nhs, religion all that shit as it’s not real, it’s just for control.

And yes, I have tried to change my life multiple times, ut it’s like that game whack a mole. Every time I get somewhere something whacks me back down again (started a photography business - 6 months later, told I’m going blind, you can’t make it up).

Well there is your answer op. You are traumatised and potentially disassociating from life. You are hurt, you are in pain, full of disillusionment and sadness. Something has shut down.

You were once a young butterfly enjoying life - then life events happened and your wings are stuck. You are stuck most likely in the pain of what happened to you.

You can tell us what happened to kill the joy within you.

Don’t give up.

Whoever you are seeing now please stop, you need trauma based therapy.

This. It’s not normal to feel this way OP.
I’m late 40’s and love life more than ever. In fact my 20’s were quite boring in some ways with the pressure to always be drinking and partying when in reality I had no one to do that with so felt I was always missing out. Worked a shit job I hated and lazed in bed until lunchtime at weekends which made me feel like crap. No kids and my life felt a bit meaningless. Feel far better in my 40’s than then.
I think you need some serious help with whatever life events have made you traumatised and depressed

Sorry. I feel your pain! I have a few like that. Need to work on my barriers.

That's why Buddha teaching us. How not to be reborn, If we reborn we have to working hard to survive and then get suffering illness, and diving, over and over, endlessly,

Life does have a meaning. The meaning of life is the search for meaning in life.

One of the issues many people, especially in the Western capitalist societies, struggle the most to understand is that meaning does not have to be confined to the self. Meaning does not come from one's pleasures, one's wealth, one's own position in society. It would be an extremely egocentric position to believe that. In order to find meaning one has to appreciate "the other": the other person, the other creature, the other country, the other species, the other planets, the other galaxies and the universe as a whole. Then meaning appears.

We are the highest form of intelligence that we know of. We have learned to take perspecive. Concretely, as far as human interactions are concerned, meaning derives from our togetherness: we cooperate to survive and to discover truths, to search for purpose. We have imagination and are able to take perspecive, and appreciate other people's points of view. We have culture. We have the beauty of our art and the depth of our knowledge. It survives the individuals and gets passed to the next generations, even if humanity disappears it can be passed on to another form of intelligence, perhaps one we ourselves have created. Even if the entire universe one day collapses back to a point and disappears the meaning of what has been achieved and what did exist would not be erased: meaning does not require eternity.

In modern materialistic societies there are strong forces which work to confuse people's minds as to what the purpose of existence is. Minds are programmed to seek pleasure and satisfy selfish pursuits such as enrichment beyond one's basic needs, attention seeking and excitement for excitement's sake. These behaviours are in many ways akin to addictions. Addicitions which a mindless captialist system requires so that consumerism can flourish. As these trends take place many lose sight of purpose beoyond the self. Yet they remain unhappy: because fundamentally, logically, the self cannot hold true purpose and because no human is an island.

Ale happy
Just wanted to say how much I enjoyed reading your post.