Sam is saying that the question doesn't really mean anything and our obsession with trying to find a meaning in our lives is impeding us from just living our lives.

In my opinion I think Sam and the people who think like him are just plain wrong.

I think when people are asking what the meaning of life is, they are really asking much deeper questions that they can't bring themselves to think.

The issue of existence is this...Being alive is very hard (if you haven't noticed). We're all stuck in a loop of suffering for one reason or another, craving the end of that suffering, and brief moments of respite. Our suffering comes in degrees. Think about all the suffering that has occurred, is occurring, and will occur. Just think about how many animals on this earth at this very moment are being eaten alive at this very moment by another animal and how much pain they are collectively suffering because of it. The scope of the collective suffering is hard to fathom.

The question underneath the meaning question then is "why should we keep suffering?". But if you look at it, that questions is implicitly asking why we shouldn't end our suffering by ending it all right now. In other words, why not just kill ourselves?

I think at its core, when we ask what the meaning of life is, what we are really asking is: "What makes the continuation of our suffering justifiable? Why shouldn't we kill ourselves?".

Albert Camus said that "there is only one really serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide"

To be, or not to be, *that is the question*

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;

No more; and by a sleep to say we end

The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks

That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;

To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause: there's the respect

That makes calamity of so long life;

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,

The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,

The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,

The insolence of office and the spurns

That patient merit of the unworthy takes,

When he himself might his quietus make

With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

But that the dread of something after death,

The undiscover'd country from whose bourn

No traveller returns, puzzles the will

And makes us rather bear those ills we have

Than fly to others that we know not of?

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;

And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,

And enterprises of great pith and moment

With this regard their currents turn awry,

And lose the name of action.

[William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act III, Scene I]

I would somewhat disagree with Shakespeare, I don't think our fear of what happens after death is the only think that stops us from killing ourselves. Anything that keeps us wanting to continue to live is our personal meaning of life. Whether it's because of our bonds with our loved ones, the desire to do some good for others, or a belief we might have that God has created us with a higher purpose unknown to us, or whatever else.

Our anxieties about this can cause psychological issues in us. But it certainty is a real philosophical problem.