the meaning of life (a modest post)

Today I found out that a friend died. He was not someone I was very close with, but he is the first person my age and connected to many people I know that has passed away. I recently started to re-read all of Nietzsche's works. As best as I can tell, I'm doing this to seek meaning. Of course, that's nothing new. I do that all the time - to a noticeable fault. Perhaps it's the convergence of Nietzsche and this untimely death, but I find myself feeling very lucky. Lucky to be alive. Lucky to be sitting high up the mountain. Lucky to be able to say these things at all.

Long ago I decided I was not smart enough to defy history. George Santayana said "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." My modification is that those who are aware of history are surrounded by those doomed to repeat it. I have made many of the choices in my life with this in mind. I've pursued the things that the vast majority of people, philosophers, moralists and writers have said yield fulfillment and happiness. And it seems I've gotten most of them - along with most of the attendant happiness.

But what is a person's responsibility to the world? A poet friend told me raising a strong family is the most noble thing one can do in the face of a world determined to destroy the family for capitalist advancement. But is doing something noble enough? Am I just really early for the mid life freak out?