Most people feel on occasion that life is absurd, and some feel it continually. They understand that life is impermanent, that we are born only, to then die and whatever seems the problem this moment will not matter in a million years. To emphasize the absurdity of it all we talk about being specks in a vast universe. But then again if we were to live forever would that make our lives less absurd say these people and ultimately come to the conclusion that all is meaningless that we do or say.
We study, work, get up every morning, do what is necessary to sustain our existence in a day to day pursuit of what? An end to our existence. That is the ultimate irony in the minds of these people. Some people become depressed at this realization and turn to drugs and alcohol to ease the feeling of emptiness that this way of looking at the world brings them.
Others throw themselves into an endeavour of one kind or another and pursue it like their life depended on it in order not to think about the irony of it all.. For example some pursue the accumulation of monetary wealth and feel the more they have the less likely the grim reaper will come a calling.
The only real way to stave off the nagging feeling that God is a Cosmic Joker playing with our lives for His/Her amusement is to throw ourselves into an activity that feels significant, join a religious group, a political party or ideology, something with a larger purpose or start being creative and hope the squiggles on our canvas have some ultimate meaning.
Then we think of Nature, and realize that the life of our pet dog is not absurd, that they live it out naturally without wondering what it is all for, and that goes also for the stars, planets and plants.
It is only because humans have the capacity for self-awareness that the question of absurdity comes up at all. Those people that ultimately arrive at the conclusion that life is meaningless and see it as a problem to be solved, think about various solutions, the easiest is to end life early, next comes throwing ourselves into a passionate activity with others that uphold the same beliefs, then there is the pursuit of personal happiness, in an attempt to squeeze the most good stuff out of one's life before it is over.
We limit our thinking to intellectual discourse if we only see the existential dilemma of living. It is only when we open our minds up through, for example intensive mediation or perhaps shocking life events, that we notice other possibilities as responses to the irony of life. We notice that our minds actually are only made up of a conglomerate of thoughts, circling in our brain single file like frames in a movie that do not allow us to see the whole picture if we only focus on each frame.
And when we finally do have the experience of seeing and feeling the whole picture, irony and absurdity are no longer on the menu of our life-outlook. Suddenly there is no need to find meaning in our lives at all because we know and instantly understand what it is all about. This can only happen at an individual level through experience, never by the intellect, so philosophy will not get you there, meditation practice and a leap of faith are good tools for it however. Practice is hard work and requires good teachers along the way, and a dedication to the question, "What is the meaning of life?"