Sigh. There's something disturbing and comforting in seeing this thread...
These are the kind of big ticket issues that I think one can never really come back from grasping. Humans are indeed a part and product of nature; the only reason some may think otherwise is because the world most of us live in is one of primarily our own design. We live out of balance with other architects and forces, only to be reminded every once in a while of our own insignificance by plagues, natural disasters, and things of the like. But not all of us even take the hint, because we've been so indoctrinated to conceive of such things as "other", as "calamity", as something that isn't "fair" or "supposed to" happen. But what does that even mean?
I did my BA in philosophy and at this stage in life thought I'd lived enough after it to mostly know the score. Earlier this year I found myself a little surprised while playing a lovely video game called Everything, which incorporates audio quotations from Alan Watts into the experience. I had already thought for years that there was this fundamental malevolence to creation, but in a few of the recordings he talked about the intrinsic nature of conflict; how if we were to look down at the micro level of what is going on in our bodies, there are tons of forces at odds with one another, trying to take over, destroy, preserve, and so on. And how this is just another iteration of our human struggles for power, war, and so on.
Not even (allegedly) non-sentient existence was free from this torment. I'd been annoyed this whole stupid pandemic about the militarization of dialogue surrounding "fighting" the virus and thought it was such a miserable human way of framing it...but it's really just how it is. Agent Smith's analogy rings true.
Existence is just struggle. Proteins and other random matter juts makes this dumb effort to become life. Life just makes this dumb effort to continue living and preserve its lineage. Even ending life isn't easy for the vast mahority of those who want to do so, for one reason or another. If we stop making effort, we suffer - if I just lie in bed I'm going to get hungry, sore, restless, whatever. Inaction brings only unsatisfactoriness. Our only hope at staving off (and I choose my words deliberately there given the inevitability of their return) this seemingly fundamental aspect of life is to struggle against it, and it's not even a guarantee it will yield any results. Animals may search for food but not find it. I may search for a job I don't hate but not find it. And so on.
But the other side is as @Un- said; what do we even do about this? Absolute non-existence is so utterly inconceivable and not the same as non-life. Life and existence are the same; I am ancient suns and the comets of the future, and so are you. All we can do while we appear to be this aware thing going about in this human-called container is to decide, at any given point in time, if we will continue the struggle, and to what end. The answer to and even specifics of that question are unique to each of us.
What a long-winded bunch of drivel that was. At least while writing it I forgot about how excruciating it feels to live in the world I just described.