The overall effect is very much like "knowing the meaning of life" although the implementation is a lot more "I no longer care whether life has a meaning or not. Whatever this is this is fine."
Hard to describe the "no longer needing an answer" - it is a very distinct thing. Not at all the same as having the question answered.
What is success?
To laugh often and much;
to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children;
to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends;
to appreciate the beauty; to find the best in others;
to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch Or a redeemed social condition;
to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.
I think because it expressed something that I've felt but could never quite articulate - that there isn't one big well-defined reason for living but a bunch of little reasons that are all worthwhile.
If we acquire the right "bits", we get drawn out of the black hole at the end of the experiment. If we don't, we get left in to ultimately break down into Hawking Radiation. Hell is being left behind, not eternal torment just eventual complete subsumption into entropic decay.
This would explain a lot of things. Miracles? Just tweaking the experiment. Jesus? Sent in to provide some sort of data export connection between the two levels. Original sin? We took on some value or aspect that complicated or corrupted the data export, making us both less and more valuable but requiring a "filter" (presumably death) to determine which data exports have value for the project.
Actual sins? Probably actions that decrease the value of your data, or decrease the value of others' data.
It's all hooey and stuff I imagined, my religious fanfic, so to say, but it's an interesting thought to me and I felt like sharing it, so enjoy.
So what does death mean to you? There's lots of frameworks for this, pick one that fits.
In the past, we had bushido, chivalry, martyrdom, Valhalla, and that the best way to die was in battle. You don't need faith for this, but it helps. But going into battle and having like a 50% chance of death, that's one way to be in full control of your life. You could say that dying to prevent your kin from being looted and tortured, that's as meaningful as it got.
Some people believe that we're all waves in the same ocean. I believe it might have been Seneca but there's also a few others. We're just a collection of energy. An ant is not sentient, but ant colony has the complexity and possible sentience. But it's just a bundle of energy, a system that manages energy.
Our bodies are similar. Farms are like power plants, they convert energy from one form into another that's broken down by humans, for the cells. And humans convert that energy into something else. Humans build cities and rockets. Cells build humans. We're part of a system in a way that cells are part of us. A city holds a form of sentience, probably similar to an ant colony, but different to humans and animals. And so when we die, our energy is just returned to the universe, recycled by other little animals. Some people think your consciousness can be reincarnated as animals, but what if you can be reincarnated as a city? Who knows how this consciousness thing works? But if you want to find out about that, listen to stories from people who have nearly or temporarily died or those who had a stroke and had their brain totally break apart. They're surprisingly consistent.
For some, death is the afterlife. God and Karma give us a KPI and our role, as humans, is to meet it as best we can. God, being omniscient, knows the right things to put in that KPI, so all we do is just serve God fully. You'd trust that God is smarter and knows what's best for you. Humility is a prerequisite, where people finally admit that they don't know and ask for a higher power to guide them.
Anyway, this is just an example of how far you can get when you flip the question around and ask what the meaning of death is.
"Your personalized Meaning of Life" comes to you when you choose the path that makes you truly happy and loved. A hard lesson is realizing that money, fame, status are only transient feel happy moments.
This is achieved through the mastery of self-control gained during the experience of wisdom or enlightenment (the self-reliant demonstration of one's growth in knowledge). This will necessarily lead one to be considerate of the world and its harmonious ordering extending itself into human society and its inter-generational endurable record-keeping which acts as a positive feedback loop in construction higher measures of harmony (peace and balance) between ourselves, according more fun and eradicating misery.
—Alan Watts
-- Kurt Vonnegut
Meaning is dependent on what you do.
The ultimate meaning? Such redundancy! Meaning shifts as the waves in the ocean. I assure you that meaning will change as you grow older.
But now, let’s explore this question of how to achieve the ultimate meaning of life. Maybe you want an answer from Zen? The way to achieve is to achieve it. You see, there’s no other way of doing a thing than by doing it. You cut potatoes by cutting potatoes. You can’t cut them by brushing your hair.
What is the meaning you want to achieve? Figure that out and do it. How? Do as musicians do. Live for the music. For every note. Don’t hurry to the end because the point of music is to be in the moment and enjoy the melody.
What answers have you already found?
What work have you already done?
Reading the Bible is a good place to start.
Find a problem that interests you and try to solve it.
God loves museums and art galleries, and she often hangs around them, sipping a cup of coffee (one cream, two sugars).
Viktor Frankl's book is pretty good too. https://www.amazon.com/Mans-Search-Meaning-classic-Holocaust...
"Best" is subjective.