Personally Survival is enough to keep me going, but not enough to feel like I’m fulfilled or accomplished anything of significance.
Human beings have evolved a need for meaning as a source of motivation and drive to further better oneself and/or others in their life. Since meaning is subjective, it differs from person to person as well as it could be stronger or weaker. An example is one man could have more than enough meaning to drive him to better himself and/or others around him simply by having a kid, while another man could need a lot more than that and actually could do the opposite (Such as leaving the kid or falling into bad habits).
We’ve also evolved a need to communicate and help others. Those two things right there supply a lot of meaning for a lot of people, and if neither of those two things have been satisfied at least to a fair amount, living could seem more like a chore, one could become depressed along with other potential mental disorders, and then would need much more motivation to get out of that state of mind, specially if the individual is content with their lifestyle.
For me personally, the meaning of life is survival. With survival comes everything else. It’s enough to keep me from suicide, but not enough to feel fulfilled or that I have a meaningful life. I hate feeling content because I know there is much more out there to explore and learn. Maybe I’ll find out why we are here, what this place is, can we leave this place we call the universe, or are we trapped here? If I died not even attempting to answer these questions it would be a bad story in my eyes. Plus, we only get one shot at this as far as we know, so why not see what the world is about?
I love learning about ways to prolong life and end the aging disease we all have. I personally realize survival is of the most importance (Even though I suck at it) but what comes from surviving (Potentially) is even bigger. What I’ve learned in 10 years has changed my thinking drastically since I was a teenager. Perspective is key, learning and understanding how others view a topic, even if you disagree or hate the person, will open your eyes to other possibilities. I was a nihilist for the most part when I was younger, anti-social in that I hated most people, but I really took the time after my first girlfriend to try and see things from another way. Like in the first example of the two different men, I would have immediately called him a POS for leaving his kid when I was younger, but now I would at least try and understand him first. Maybe he has mental problems or something happened to him I couldn’t possibly understand. I found a post on here from about 2010 I think where I was saying addiction is a choice and if you can’t quit smoking, for example, you simply lack willpower. Now, I smoke tobacco and understand the other side of tobacco addiction way better than before. I never thought it was like this.
Anyways I feel like I’m ranting at this point. It’s been 10 years or so since I’ve talked about philosophy or science or anything mind stimulating so forgive me if this all sounds… stupid or something. I hope I at least attempted to answer the OP. Oh and I used the word meaning to mean reason or purpose, so if I used it wrong… my bad.