> Might be useful to ask a different question: What makes people happy?

This is the age old question. For me at least, the quest for meaning lead me to reason. Reason and logic, then led me to two choices. First is there is no meaning, no purpose, and life is what you make or not make of it; this is more commonly known as nihilism. The second choice is a literal leap of faith; this argues that humans are incapable of understanding of the purpose of life and we need to have faith in the existence of a benevolent God. The leap of faith ultimately leads me back to the question of what is God? Catholic tradition defines God as the source of caritas also known as agape.

It might be the case that the nuance is insufficient (false dichotomy).

Suppose someone asks the [emotionally loaded] question:

"Is abortion wrong?"

Technically this is a yes or no question; a binary.

One can quite easily answer that it depends, and then all the nuances can try to be enumerated in more detail. The fact is that the information presented was not actually nuanced enough to answer yes or no despite being worded as such.

You performed some similar gymnastics here. You assume it must be the case that it is one or the other when it may not be. Maybe meaning is local. Maybe it is real but subjective. Maybe it isn't a meaningful term (lol). Maybe it contains an intrinsic paradox!

A perhaps alternative question might be: "What is it that wishes to know the answer to that question?"

Figuring that out might be a necessary prerequisite.

Reason and logic lead you to only two choices, where one choice immediately begs you to abandon reason and logic and just believe what feels right? I think reason and logic can take you further than that. We can explore a spectrum of ideas without committing immediately.