"If nothing we do matters - then all that matters is what we do."

We're just smelly sacks of biology like a rat or a lizard who happen to have developed higher reasoning capacity for whatever reason.

I'm pretty confident that there's an afterlife.

I speak from my own research into related phenomena.

The afterlife is basically the dreamworld but moreso.

Ngl this type of post on reddit used to make me depresssed as a kid and id make them too, dont want to see them, theres no point in thinking about this thats why ppl either dont or spend all their time religious

if one's life was just loneliness, failed relationships, and soul-draining work it might appear pointless

maybe there is lots of other things to do?

Well, things do happen after you die, just not to you.

Compassion for those who come after us is one possible source of meaning.

One could also consider that having no afterlife makes this life more meaningful than it would be compared to an infinity.

Well, that's kinda the point.

If you assume that all we get is what we have while we're alive, then that life becomes the point

A lot of people that reach the conclusions you have, opt out. They move into a commune, they go vagabond, they may choose to just flit between jobs and find whatever fun is in them.

Or, they may decide to become focused on finding purpose within the world that is, the societal structures as they exist. Some of those devote themselves to service, or find jobs that they believe make life better for others.

Some stay in the framework of things, but do the bare minimum and focus on their off time their purpose.

The point of it, from that point of view where this is all we get, is to find what makes staying alive worth it.

It isn't like the certainty of no afterlife removes your ability to live and love and do good things. It can make it harder to bear the bad things of life as well, but that's anything really.

The point is what you decide it is.

There's no meaning, no purpose. We're random life on a random planet. Try to have a happy life and try not to inhibit the happiness of others. That's it.

The journey wasn't taken from you just because there is no destination

IIRC, the nihilist position is that there is no point, and the way I've chosen to interpret that is that it means we are free to personally define the point at any time, and for any length of time, as we please. The pointlessness lets us custom design life to fit our needs and desires, if we can minimize getting caught up in "you should do this and be that" external mentalities that may be incompatible with our natures. This seems like one of many correct paths to life satisfaction.

Of course, part of the battle is discovering what's in your(you in general not you specifically) nature to do and be, and then having the courage to see it through no matter what influences around you are saying or doing that may contradict it. The other part being unlearning incompatible mindsets that may have been fed into your mind when you were younger; authority figures anywhere in, and in any stage of, life are in dangerous positions to cause long term harm to impressionable, trusting minds, which is why I personally focus more on the "figure" and less on the "authority" part of "authority figure" when I'm dealing with people in those positions.

"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it" - Aristotle or whoever actually said it.

Whatever you want. Find something that brings you joy and try to do more of that. If it's important to you to leave a legacy, try to connect to others and be in their lives. Try to make good, meaningful changes to the world, even if they're small. Our existences are only so long, and worth enjoying.

The meaning of life is to have a life full of meaning.

I find meaning by doing drugs and hooking up with randoms from growlr.

Welcome to adulthood.

The question you ask is universal. The answer much less so and in that difference lies the journey of life.

For some it's about amassing as much wealth as possible, for others it's about cementing a legacy. The pursuit of happiness is a common approach and to serve is yet another. Some seek solace in religion, others in hedonism. Some spend a lifetime searching, others exist and take in the experience.

For me it's about making the world a better place.

You are the Universe experiencing itself.

All I know is that I'd rather be here than not be here. It doesn't get much deeper than that for me.

Because life is it's own joy, and being alive the greatest gift. The loneliness will pass and return, the work grind you down as a song heard in passing will lift you up, the endless obligations are part of being an inherently social species. But, whether human or crocodilian, garden slug or spider, there is pleasure in the warm sun and a full belly, in waking from a good sleep and stretching whatever muscles your ancestors bequeathed. It's only those who demand that, somehow, the universe give them some cosmic purpose -- we, who are less than a virus floating around a sparkling grain of sand on an endless beach -- who cannot find enough in life to be happy.

I guess everybody will come up with different answers to that.

To me, saying "there is nothing after death" is a simplified model. It asks you to live in the here-and-now, to live in the moment, because that makes you productive today.

Of course, the world won't end when you die. You will leave an impact on the world, kind of a track. Like, when water flows over a landscape long enough, it leaves a river bed. That will stay, even after the water subsides.

So in some sense, death might be your end, but it's not the end. I don't know whether that helped you.

It's the everyday drudgery, miseries and annoyances that make the good times worthwhile. Just like you never appreciate the sun more than in a place that gets very little of it.

I currently live in a country that enjoys a very high standard of living and where people really do enjoy the good life. Yet weirdly enough, a lot of the locals are depressed and keep complaining. Why? Because they don't realize what they have, because it's their everyday normal.

As for what's the point of living, if you don't want to fall into the easy fallacies of religion, I suggest you simply enjoy your life while you can. You were born with a finite number of hours on this dirtball and they're ticking away, so make sure you spend as many as you can with your loved ones having a good time. Because when the clock stops ticking, it's over.

We have no evidence anything happens after you die. The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. If it makes you feel better to believe theres some afterlife waiting for you go for it. Just dont be a dick about it to other people. Keep it to yourself.

What do we owe to each other? For coexistence without inherent meaning in an afterlife, is the only source of moral good the social contract that we've made with each other to coexist peacefully? What are the bounds of that contract? What are the terms of our coexistence?

If something happens after we die, what’s the point of it all?

No matter if anything happens after death or not, or what happens, we can not know and we don’t seem to be able to comprehend it either way. So we can not know if what we have got is comparatively good or bad. The only thing left is to make the best of it. Because why not?