> The older I get the more I feel that the point of living is experience
On the flip side I think the very modern take on "life = experience" can be badly interpreted. The trend is more about consuming experiences and destinations rather the living experiences, you could describe them as commercialized experiences (Disneyland, holiday resorts in very touristic countries, &c.)
Yup, exactly. My current take is that "pursue experiences instead of things" is primarily a meme that's being spread by countless businesses that want recurring revenue. Experiences are fleeting, so you have to keep buying them all over again - where a well-chosen thing is something you buy once, and it keeps yielding value (including, possibly, experiences) for a long time.
>The older I get the more I feel that the point of living is experience, not meaning.
the older I get the more I see the point of living as basically the same as everything in nature - propagate your genes as much possible and give them the best chance of them propagating their genes. Everything else is try and and fun and help humankind
“The purpose of life is not to be [superficially] happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.” - R.W. Emerson
“Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification, but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.” – Helen Keller
“Through love alone can man find the kingdom of heaven for which he has sought since his beginnings. Only through living love as a principle can he find the happiness, peace and prosperity which lie in his heart as the greatest of his desires.” - Walter Russell
The stories we make up inside our fish bowls most likely have very little to do with reality.