Some of my best trips have been driving without a fixed destination open to new discovery. And in the discovery knowing what to explore and perhaps focus intention.

I can very much related to your existential conundrum.  At the end of my search for meaning and purpose I have concluded is a fool’s game. Seeking things like meaning, purpose and happiness is like trying to grasp water or air in a grasping hand. The reason is that such experience exists in there being not as something created.  We do no create happiness but notice it. It is only after noticing happiness that we reverse engender it.  When I did x, y, and z it creates such and such which I experienced as happiness. We think that if I keep doing x, y and z trying to recreate such and such I should always be happy. And we fail, as such doing can only end in failure and depressed. Purpose and meaning are the same. As long as we are seeking we are not finding. (To find we stop in the still point of the moment)

When most people talk about purpose they usually image something grand and because its grand easily recognizable… hopefully applauded by others that will marvel at their purpose. Most purpose and meaning that we will experience belong only to us that no one else might noitice.

In your driving metaphor of driving without a fixed destination you seem to assume that you must identify and ‘know’ your purpose or meaning (Not the same things) before getting into the car and driving anywhere – as only drives with a specific direction can have purpose and meaning?  You may be seeking to define your purpose and meaning before you actually live it, which might be backwards.

That may be the wrong quest/question as the experience (state of being) of meaning and purpose occur in the process of being and then only if ones eyes are open. Even driving without direction can become experiences of meaning and purpose!

Your angst may not be so much about meaning and purpose but in choosing a path and that is not the same as purpose or meaning. The problem seems to be that not just any path will due but that you must “know”  what the ‘right path’is before travailing it, a path that is certain, with certain expectations of purpose and meaning.  Certainty is nice but it tends to turn on you especially for those seeking meaning or purpose. Certainty can close a person off to discovering what is right in front of them.

My advice for what is worth is to refrain the questions your asking yourself and enjoy the drive.  With such openness the drive itself maybe an experience of purpose and meaning and point you to your path.  (which will be the one you were always on)

In my philosophical search for purpose, I end with Camus that all philosophical search ends in the absurd and the choice to laugh or cry. “The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.” ― Albert Camus

My end to the quest for meaning ends with Joseph Campbell

“Life has no meaning. Each of us has meaning and we bring it to life. It is a waste to be asking the question when you are the answer.”― Joseph Campbell

You are the answer! Even driving without a destination is meaning, is purpose, when eyes are open. Open to wonder, open to bliss….

“If you do follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. Follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.”― Joseph Campbell