Apart from philosophy mentioned by the other poster, you can also read into psychology. Some branches in psychology deal with the question of how to live a fulfilled life, eg. positive psychology [1] and humanistic psychology [2]. Also Buddhism has similar goal and teachings interleave with these psychology topics [3].
To start, you can pick a Psychology 101 textbook (I like Psychology and Life [4]) and then read the people and bibliography mentioned in these Wikipedia articles.
Agreed. On my journey to some sort of personal meaning I ended up going through psychology, physical sciences, philosophy & meditation - roughly in that order with poetry and literature interspersed…
But understanding life has, in my experience, been similar to the hermeneutic circle: to understand a part, you must understand the whole, and to understand the whole, you must understand the parts…
That is: the entry point is here - learn about the world and about how humans think about and perceive it. Start anywhere, but start.
*edit: I forgot to add also history. It also helps to shed light on the different meanings people have discovered over time.
But understanding life has, in my experience, been similar to the hermeneutic circle: to understand a part, you must understand the whole, and to understand the whole, you must understand the parts…
That is: the entry point is here - learn about the world and about how humans think about and perceive it. Start anywhere, but start.
*edit: I forgot to add also history. It also helps to shed light on the different meanings people have discovered over time.