Life is totally meaningless. We live. We die. So what’s the point?

You are right. Life is meaningless. No single meaning can capture the essence of life. When we try to capture life into concepts, the juice of life, the essence of life into concepts, and then forget about this essence, the concepts we have created seem meaningless to us. Then our mind again starts to search for this essence, it starts asking: ‘what is the point?’ To find the answer, we must go beyond the mind, beyond the conceptual voice that speaks within our head. Like a cake without sugar or any sweetening in it, when our awareness is just in our thoughts, but not in the deeper love, they feel like tasteless, meaningless. Whatsoever we do will seem like a coping mechanism if we just stay in our thoughts but not go deeper within ourselves to find the truth of life. Religion will also seem like that because when religion is experienced as just words, but not the universal truth that is pointed to by those words (any religion or any system of truth, if genuine, should point at the truth of life), it will just seem like a coping mechanism, and rightly so. Many people live religion as a coping mechanism, but never find the truth within themselves. Religion is not mandatory to find the truth, it is only necessary that you look within yourself, that you bring your awareness within yourself, deeper than your mind. If you really honestly do this, being true to yourself, then you will go beyond the meaningless words, and find the true meaning that is beyond words. Then you can speak it, and any words you use to describe your experience will carry that meaning to those who are willing to listen, truly willing to understand, truly willing to look beyond where they have already looked up to that moment. When we truly experience, we can understand. Our understanding develops as we look deeper and deeper and as our experience of ourselves expands. True satisfaction, happiness, meaning is the experience of our genuine self that is both beyond creation, and in creation. Our mind starts seeking when we are not aware of this, so we need to become truly aware of this beyond conceptualization for the seeking to stop and meaning to be experienced. Genuine meditation will teach us to become aware of this and as we practice, we do. Concepts are just a starting point, but many and many are stuck in them, never truly trying to understand and experience what they truly mean, and in time, for them, they become dead, prisons for their awareness, where they are habitualized to mostly remain in.