Reading this thread, and resonating with much of what you say, may I suggest maybe that it's not the meaning or a meaning, but simply the search for meaning itself (which I realise was the title of Viktor Frankl's book) that might offer some structure.

I don't know if it's our brain wiring, chemistry, experiences, psychological development path dependencies, or what, but I'm pretty convinced that human brains are pattern-seeking systems, and finding and establishing patterns, ordering our universes, is one fundamental drive.

It also turns out that that's what I've been directly and principally focusing on for the past few years, mostly because I can't not.

Several of the activities and compulsions you mentioned above strike me as behaviors which feed the brain's reward systems fairly directly (drugs, alcohol, sex, extreme activities), and your combat and other experiences may also affect that -- not judgement or anything, just mapping for me of "what does the brain seek, how does it work, how is it itself re-shaped by experiences?".

The advantage of taking a shortcut is to get to a destination faster. The advantage of taking the long way around, or exploring a space, is often to get a far stronger sense of the interconnections within that space. I thrive on connections, myself, so that has appeal.

No idea how this strikes you, but offered for consideration.

I really appreciate (and am very fascinated by) your extreme honesty in this thread.

I've read Camus twice. The first time I read The Stranger, I took away meaninglessness, in the sense that existentialism seemed true.

The second time, I nearly threw up (no, I wasn't reading Nausea :-D), but in the sense that I don't think I've ever felt anything was so absolutely evil and wrong, and existentialism false.

I can't explain this in a philosophical way, and it may be a delusional and biased opinion given my life experiences between the two readings, but I think observing intuitions does hint at universal meaning. Intuitions might be intellectual observations of objective truths no different, in principle, from observations of atoms, or reason itself.

I've nothing to offer except my own experience. I deconverted from a fundamentalist church and had to rebuild my life because I realized that external factors do not give meaning to it, the origin of something does not give it value, and the end of it all is the same.

I don't have much patience with myself getting into the same thought patterns. Perhaps this lack of patience is the must important skill I acquired.