Does human life have real meaning, given oblivion, cosmic scale and an indifferent universe?

Axis: life has real meaning (found or made) ... life is ultimately meaningless

John

date	change	position	video
2009-05-04	new	John argues pandemics make us afraid of oblivion and the futility of effort, which we must hold in balance with the necessity to struggle.	Oinkbarf Pandemic! An Intellectual Response to Swine Flu 00:03:02
2010-06-21	refine	John: we will all die and be forgotten, but that is not nihilistic; we can't choose whether to care, only what to care about, and we have a say in how temporary things are.	You're Gonna Die 00:01:04
2011-06-21	restate	John: judged by actions humans look like functional nihilists, but everyone feels called to meaning, and how to bring meaning to human life is the deep question.	On Religion 00:01:32
2011-08-18	restate	John says there is no cosmic mandate to make stuff and the world probably won't be any different for what you make or do; he has struggled with this and wrote TFIOS about it.	Hank's Question Tuesday DEBUT! 00:02:56
2011-09-12	restate	John says one of the points of being alive is that we get to pay attention to, and take part in, an elegant but heartless universe.	Adorable Baby and Insufficient Cartography 00:00:41
2012-02-21	restate	John says professional lives are important but not what life is about; human life is really about relationships and communities.	Life is Weird. Also beautiful. 00:02:42
2012-07-10	restate	John says he feels most alive, least like he is wasting his life, in conversations with family and friends about things that matter to him.	Feeling More Alive: Fahrenheit 451's The Hearth and the Salamander 00:04:08
2013-01-16	refine	John says the universe acts as if uninterested in individuals; he no longer cares whether meaning is inherent or constructed, only what we find, mostly in collaboration.	An Evening of Awesome at Carnegie Hall 00:56:04

Hank

date	change	position	video
2010-04-20	new	Facing the scale of the universe shown by the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, Hank holds that humanity has an important place in it because of the act of understanding.	I Shall BLOW YOUR MIND 00:02:35
2011-05-11	new	Hank holds that, as in SimCity, life has no winning and no given goal, so people decide for themselves what success is.	1990's Sim Games. SO GOOD! 00:03:31
2011-08-23	restate	Hank says some days the purpose of life seems to be converting energy into beauty, though he knows it is not rationally true.	Thoughts from a Butterfly Hatch 00:03:22
2011-09-23	new	Hank holds that places and people are special not because they are improbable but because of the relationships and love we have with them.	The Improbability of Place - Thoughts from the San Juans 00:02:55
2011-10-07	restate	Hank says not being special is normal, necessary and wonderful; perhaps the aim is for the world to be less good without us at the end of our lives, so we need not be special, just good.	Steve Jobs and a Song 00:03:34
2012-08-03	restate	Hank: what matters most, and the value a person brings to the world, comes from loving people and being loved by them.	I Don't Understand My Life 00:01:32