Something that Dipper/Alcor, Henry, Hank and everyone else who might be intellectual and perhaps a bit philosophical hopefully can find a bit interesting as a question. What IS the meaning of life? No, I don't want to know the MEANING in itself, more like... is there a meaning at all? And if there is, what kind of meaning is it? Something some celestial being/god/whatever there is decided, do we decide a meaning for our own lives or is there some kind of public meaning? Or something else?
Wellll, that depends on how you look at things, in a sense. From an extra-temporal standpoint, where all time exists in a singularity and past is present is future, it follows that all things that will be have been and all that has been will be, which implies a certain inevitability to the totality of history - the very moment a dinosaur was born was the very moment it died was the very moment its bones were excavated and reassembled for display in a museum, and with the temporal constraints of ‘cause’ and ‘effect’ removed there remains what one might call “fate.”
But at the same time, humans (as well as a vast majority of other creatures, beings, and entities of various sorts, not to mention the majority of the universe itself) exist in a temporal state where cause and effect are clear and relatively linear, even within the loops and spirals of successful time travel. A person makes what at least appears to be totally free choices, from what to eat for breakfast to what color socks to wear to whether or not to pull a trigger...and all of these choices have their consequences.
Now, put the free choices of a linear view of time together with the inevitability principles of a singularity, and you more or less get a view of fate which says that while all outcomes are “predetermined” by virtue of already existing alongside the events which apparently determined them, the determination of those outcomes still belongs to those events - that is to say, a person’s choices are inevitable only because they belong so utterly to that person that it is only natural that person would have made them.
BUT then there’s the multiverse aspect to throw a wrench into things, in that every conceivable choice and every possible action undertaken by every single being in a world creates one or more new worlds, versions and iterations splitting off into infinity. This removes almost all notion of fate, destiny, or predetermination from the table by making all outcomes inevitable, just scattered across mirrored realities, and while more realities may exist for this particular outcome or that according to the choice and the person - someone who loves blue socks and hates red will probably choose the blue in more iterations of that choice than vice versa - all outcomes could be (or even are) explored.
Basically, this all boils down to this: there is (more than likely; I know lots of things, but not ALL the things, so I’ll leave room for error in important stuff like this) no roadmap, no supreme goal, no particular fate or destiny or other outside force slapping to-do lists on your soul at birth or at any other time. Sometimes the pressures of the world shape your life in certain ways, and sometimes accidents or coincidences make it jump rails you never expected, but in the end most of it comes down to the choices you make, and the choices you make come down to whatever makes you you.
So give your life whatever meaning and purpose you think is best, and then push toward it, and if the going becomes too difficult then it’s not a sign that it’s not your destiny or whatever, it’s just you bouncing against the wakes of the rest of the world, all chugging along after their own purposes and making their own waves doing it, and whether you keep trying or whether you change your direction or your end goal or whatever else, it’s still your choice and it’s still you making your own meaning.
