I have toyed with the notion that the meaning of life just is the search for its meaning. But this is really no better than saying that the meaning of life is subjective: posited and maintained by the agent of the life, and potentially different for different agents. If the meaning of human life is subjective, however, then it has no meaning. Similarly, if the meaning of life is exhausted in the search for life's meaning, then there is no meaning apart from the search, which is to say that life has no meaning, strictly speaking. The following, then, is a nonstarter:
1. The meaning of human life consists in the quest for its meaning.
But (1) is to be distinguished from
2. No human life can count as truly meaningful unless some portion of it is devoted to raising, investigating, and answering for oneself the question as to the meaning of human life.
(2) I heartily endorse. The difference between (1) and (2) is that (1) identifies the quest for meaning with meaning whereas (2) does not.
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