The Meaning of Life (in General)

                I ask myself ‘what is the meaning of life’, but not with the intention of finding my place in the universe. I have already found mine, or at least think I have, but that is irrelevant. The question is not intended for me, but for us. What is our place here in the universe, and what should we do to make it count? I will be excluding any sort of religious view, as I believe that it is up to the individual, in this case on a macroscopic scale (the individual would be society as a whole), to find this for itself. Having a god tell us this seems simply too easy. And I believe that at least Christianity does not offer any long-term goal – just moral guidelines to help us on the way. No, it seems to me that we have to find it for ourselves.
                But what should we aim at then? Universal happiness or equality? Both? Maybe the universal knowledge and adaptation of the ideals of the Zeitgeist Movement? While these all seem like noble purposes, I have different thoughts about the matter. Communism, and here I mean the original meaning of the word, depicting a society where everything is shared, seems to be a beautiful and romanticised idea. But that is all it is. To my understanding, in such a society, everyone would do what they could, get what they need to live, and everybody would be equals. These are indeed noble ideals, but they do not suffice for me. The goals of Communism, and here I mean the various movements, has never been described to me as anything else than the attempt to adopt and “unversify” these ideals, but what I wonder is what happens next. Some variations, and here I refer to what is called primitive communism, suggest that the easiest, and best, way to obtain such a society would be to go back to a pre-agricultural model:

“In a primitive communist society, all able bodied persons would have engaged in obtaining food, and everyone would share in what was produced by hunting and gathering. There would be almost no private property, other than articles of clothing and similar personal items, because  primitive society produced no surplus; what was produced was quickly consumed. The few  things that existed for any length of time (tools, housing) were held communally. There would have been no state.” (Source: Wikipedia)

My point is that such a society, where the only goal seems to be the sustenance of human life and, I admit, happiness, would be pointless in itself. For any being that has achieved awareness, the simple act of only securing its continuation is unrewarding, meaningless. For what is there to live for if all we are doing is to continue to live?
                For myself, I believe in the advancement of the human race, both in the domains of medicine, science, philosophy and technology. I believe and support research and actions that better our situation on our earth, and that allow us to grow as a species.
                We have had an enormous advancement during the last century in all of the fields mentioned above; we have much, much more than quadrupled our quantity, and stand now in the middle of a global regionalisation, where countries grow more tightened together. I believe that the meaning of life as an aware species is to continue this development, and to take it to the next step, whether that proves to be abolishing national borders and establishing an international government; letting advancements in robotics and artificial intelligence make our day-to-day safer and easier; furthering social and ethnical equality and distributing better the goods of our society; or maybe even colonising and terraforming new worlds. Whatever we do, it is advancement that provides us with purpose, and I would like for us to do so, one step at a time.

"For NASA, space is still a high priority", George Walker Bush