> What is often unappreciated is that bad metaphysics leads to bad ideas, in this case that life is meaningless. And why is materialism at fault? Because it denies telos. Without telos, life is, indeed and quite literally, meaningless. But why should that trouble us if we, the world, all of it, were as the materialists say it is? Needs don't exist in a materialist universe because need implies telos (a need is always for the sake of something), and we suffer when needs aren't met, so where is this suffering about there not being any meaning in the first place coming from? So clearly, telos is real and materialism is, for this and other reasons, wrong.

What on earth does this mean? How does the existence or nonexistence of "telos" - the idea of "purpose" being a real thing that exists in the world - affect the fact that if I don't eat I die and if I don't talk to my friends for a long time I get sad?