"""
Is There A Meaning To Life?
"""

Absolutely! Oppose those that would tell you how to live your life. After all, what were we put here for, if not to enjoy our own life how we want to live it?

"""
The most valuable thing is time to do exactly that.
"""

The wisest quote of the whole thread. Congratulations, Yabby, you get it :)

*we have time to reflect. This a luxury not afforded to other species as they are required to remain ever vigilant.*

Well Poirot, I'd have to disagree. You need to watch more Attenborough
documentaries :)

When chimps and bonobos build nests in the trees to settle in for
the night, they snooze away, relax and take it easy. In fact much
of nature is about snoozing away and even boredom. We know and can
prove that they think, but what they think about, we cannot yet
prove. You will find with some social species, some keep guard
whilst the rest relax.

Even my sheepdog is pretty smart, but of course they were selected
for intelligence. I once could not figure out why there were little
pebbles in the house and blamed myself and perhaps my boots. One
day I watched her, as she brought one in from outside, then settled
down to play little games, rolling in around in her mouth and tongue,
dropping it, up again, etc. Quite amazing to watch, she's bored
and amuses herself when I'm writing posts on OLO.

Yabby,

You unwittingly prove Ortega's point.

He writes:
"If we are able to remain still for a time in passive contemplation of the simian scene, one of its characteristics will presently....strike us like a flash of lightning. And this is that the infernal little beasts are constantly on the alert, perpetually uneasy, looking and listening for all the signals that reach them from their surroundings, intent upon their environment as if they feared some constant peril in it....it is the objects and events in its surroundings which govern the animal's life, which pull it and push it about like a marionette.....
That is why the animal has always to be attentive to what goes on outside it, to the things around it. Because even if the dangers and incitements of those things were to diminish, the animal would perforce continue to be governed by them, by the outward, by what is other than "itself", since it has no "self" where it can withdraw and rest..... It cannot take a stand within itself. Hence when things cease to threaten it or caress it; when they give it a holiday; in short when the "other" ceases to move it and manage it, the poor animal has virtually to cease to exist, that is: it goes to sleep."

Your bonobos haven't the capacity to reflect on their condition. When they're not engaged they sleep.

I used to watch the TV add for tinned milk that went "Carnation milk from [MOO] contented cows", & wonder about those cows, & what being contented was like, but I stopped before I got a headache.

the question is far too general
soi will give generalities in reply

generally the meaning of life for lichen
is to feed the reindeer...and other life forms
like moulds...bateria..micro fauna/micro flora that live ..in and on and upon it

at its next level of meaning..it assists in the breakdown,,of minerals and light into a form of energy..that susains a food source

then there is the place where it fits in the theory of evolution
[as flawed as the theory is]..we can see lichen 'evolve from moss or moss into lichen...[for an egsample]..but it would help if some theorist of evolution would definitivly prove what 'evolved'..into what..

there are species..that can only breed by other species
for egsample figs needing a particular wasp to make fertile seed

and other animals/plants that have symbiological needs
needs have a symbiotic evolution line of decent
[that science cant produce]

anyhow our bodie reason for being
is to sustain the micro flora/fauna
that needs our body for food and shelter

[its said without these microflora/micro fauna within and on our bodies..our body of itself could sustain itself to life]

anyhow as others have said
we share 50%..of our dna with a bannana
but even dna cant replicate itself into rna
or indeed dna..eg..it needs that other mitrocondial processing etc
needs a cell and a porus membrance let alone them building blocks..to replicate the dna/rna closer to its intended function

i could repeat endlessly..that life is a sign of god
that it fills every litle possable nook where life can live
because life has the qualities of its designer[its by looking at the seen that the unseen cause reveals itself]

where life is god is

so yes..everything has a reason/purpose
wether they...or we..know it or not

*Your bonobos haven't the capacity to reflect on their condition. When they're not engaged they sleep*

Poirot, that is simply your speculation no more. The funny thing
about science and primates, is how the bar has been lifted over
time. At one point only man was a toolmaker. Next thing they found
chimps making tools and so on. So they thought of another reason
why man should be different. The more you read the discoveries
of primatologists, the narrower the claimed gap becomes. This is
why I found that reading what some of them have written and
discovered to be so interesting. If you want to understand humans,
start with all primates!