Life

Written on 26th of May, 2009

Life must go on, though lives themselves must end. It’s something that’s been on my mind for a few days now. Why does life have to continue though lives end? Life provides benefits to those who have it but also risks and harm. There is gain and loss, good and bad, happiness and suffering. Those who have life fight for it while others throw in the towel. And yet still, most would argue that life is worth living, albeit difficult at times. What is life? Nearly all living things seek to preserve it and run from the danger of losing it. But what about the propulsion mechanisms of life itself? What benefit does ‘it’ receive? Why is there a drive for life in this world, and why is it that this drive is programmed into us? The molecular DNA and the cells that are programmed to generate life, what benefit is it to them? Are they slaves? They are in existence themselves so do they also feel this joy and sadness? This gain and loss? Most likely not. But what is amazing is that life is precious and worth pursuing even to those species where the cost of living is not only to a host but to its own self-detriment. Certain viruses and parasites continue living at the expense of the host; if they are lucky they leave the host before it dies (in the case of parasites) yet viruses continue living and spreading, while killing off the host that gave them life. In effect, they end their own lives but spread life itself. Why? Isn’t life only worth the experiences of the self, or is there something beyond? Is life such a gift that one’s own passing from it is negligible to the greater cause of spreading life itself, even if it means the end of its own? Life must continue though lives themselves don’t. A colony of bugs will have the wounded, weak, and the dead while the others work to move them away from the eyes of would-be predators and save the colony; though many die the colony continues to live. Cancer lives by converting normal cells into cancer cells but what happens in the process is the path to its own demise as the result of the flaw of its own design, and still, it must survive.  The cancer cells themselves die, but Cancer (the disease) continues to live. Life is a stream of consciousness, where contributors are added and subtracted at every moment, but the stream itself must go on.

So what is life? A religious dogmatic response would explain the whole enigma as the giving of a higher Power who seeks to spread life. A scientific response would explain how it works but not the question of why? Why the drive? To what end is the function of life? “Passing on one’s DNA” does not explain why its so necessary as to explain why all living things prefer to be alive rather than dead. So even if we take this answer of “passing on life” we are left in the same place, with the same question – why must life go on when lives themselves come to an end?  Is life just a gift that keeps spreading or giving  itself? The same can be said about death, as death is spreading and death must go on as well. So are the two in competition for existent beings and existence? It seems that death too is fighting for life.  And with the drama of life and death competing to exist, there is mention of an afterlife – a post-death life. If this belief is true then death is not death at all, for the threat of non-existence does not exist.  In fact, non-existence does not exist, so existence or life is resistance to not-exist. But theoretically, nothing really doesn’t exist – everything that is, is. That which is not existing, exists in some way as a thought or idea. This would take us to the idea that non-existence in fact, is not real, even if we take death to be the final resting – it is a state of existing/being nontheless (albeit it non-living.) This would give us a definition of life and some motivation as to why life must go on (because it cannot not exist) but still doesn’t explain why non-existence is something to be dreaded when it, in fact, doesn’t exist. In other words, life can never die entirely. Religion and philosophy have a simple explanation for this, and that is that life or being is actually necessary upon the Necessarily Existent, or reality itself; otherwise known as “God.” Since God cannot not exist, He would be the Necessarily Existent reality upon which all realities and existence depends. Being itself, is God’s quiddity. Life then, would seem to press forward for this reason because there is no other alternative to it, being that Being itself is a necessity and that non-being is not a reality. In some state or fashion everything, even nothing, exists. Since there is no non-existence, life, death, and all they contain compete for being though they cannot not be, they only fight for the state of the moment in the cycle of being (i.e- lives of the existent things.) Life must go on but lives themselves don’t. This question for me, has now been resolved.