Life defined is anathema to many; it is hard enough to live that to ponder its meaning is added stress. Most of us would rather just get on with it. We trudge on, day by day, the vicissitudes of life veritable pain we cannot but bear. To yield to an inevitable auxiliary of life is tough for many worse still to compliment their struggle with a disturbing angst.
What in fact life is many would ask, cornered to contemplate what it means. With the incursions of the synthetic life of genetic exfoliation into a psychic pool suffused with replicating and autonomously metabolic, even wayward cells it must ache to wade in a cognitive quay in vain, more so with viruses and endosymbionts in the mix.
Thus, to concede, even if found, a cell that on its own defines life may seem a quail, more so, to live often being much so vain, to imagine a cell in top hat strutting downtown cozy with a cell mate in heels, sobering leastwise.
Yet, we struggle with when to pull life support, and not to resuscitate. Life as we know it assumes differential significance based on whose perspective. Some revere its sanctity, others, its vanity. Many avow its link beyond now, others deny any afterlife. Thus, even defined in temporal terms, consensus is lacking on when it ends, and indeed, on when it starts, and even how, in the test tube, a computer’s hard drive, or a womb. Even as we know it, life eludes defining.
That we could reduce life to a combination of letters raises salient queries, as these letters may shuffle in other than so-called living cells. Does the ability of quake-proof cement to remould its cracks confer life on the cement, or indeed, the building? Further, one cannot gainsay that letters other than those we know may also combine and replicate with life dissimilar to ours resultant merits reflection.
To sire does not always require bipolar genders and many claim to be able to chat with roses and cats.Also, lilies become ill and die, as do sparrows and llamas. The jellyfish strikes with deadly accuracy, as do our laser-guided missiles and unmanned drones.
The grieving chimp touches our spirits, its empathy, quiver our souls. We marvel at the social grace of ants, and the clockwork exodus of birds. Is it any wonder that we would rather not contemplate life? Our angst beclouds its goal, the suffocation of our spirit, with hubris to which we cling for its balm. Life must be our way or none, its meaning, to ponder another day.
We shudder to define life, let alone seek its meaning. We simply want to live it, every minute of it. And true, we should. The animation or otherwise of a blend of letters may seem enough to characterize life, consciousness attributed to a certain mix. It may therefore, be sufficient to define life in the simplest of terms. To attribute meaning to it however, defies primal logic. The meaning of life invokes a dimensionless synthesis of cognition, affect and conation.
Even then, its meaning is not all-embracing. We can only conjecture what it means to a dog to be alive. Thus, life may mean something different to different persons, which underscores the conative import of our supplementary motor area, our intention to act, and the action taken, atavistic relic revisited by the brain dead, some would argue.
Yet, the volitional process underlines our relations, within and without. It defines our goals and determines our achievements. Its incremental, integrative nature is fundamental to our being. It moulds our character and reinforces our values. It is the cradle of virtue as it is that of villainy. It sires nobles and tyrants alike, and is the basis for our progress or its lack.
Thus, we should seek life’s meaning in our actions, elements in which lurks the triad of consciousness, ours that is. The tenacity of atavistic wisdom stresses the salience of our transience, and the valence of our being. Life renders its meaning in not just our ability to act, but in freedom to do so, to seek goals we choose, the achievement of which is emotionally rewarding, but may or may not edify our being.
The illumination of a meaningful life is sublime. We are relieved of perpetual angst and become truly free. The shackles of fate linger in darkness, the oblivion thrust on us in the consciousness abyss. Our actions in the vicious transience in which we dwell thus assume meaning, provincial or generic, and in our station along the consciousness chain, we are thus privileged to choose more enlightenment or to rot.
We are constituents of the universal consciousness, a continuum of intricate synergy. We need therefore to appreciate the worth of the accretion of our actions, and indeed, that of the choices we make, not just for ourselves, but for our emancipation from our present to a higher station in the grand consciousness scheme.
Why does this matter? By taking actions that temper our angst, we would relish even the transience life is, not wallow in perpetual anguish. Perhaps then, our exit would herald a new dawn for those we leave behind. It would matter little the pain we endure as we look ahead to a brighter future for us and for all humankind.
It may in fact be decisive for our survival as a species to embrace the generic view of life, to channel our actions wherein with our place assured in the progress of the universal consciousness, validates our strife even in transience, one whose torment our progress may retard.
As we transition from station to station, so does life’s meaning evolve. It is thus equally transient, even if within a generic framework. The synthetic cell of today may in millennia ahead be able to execute a volitional process complex enough to be higher up in the consciousness chain than where it is now. This would be consistent with our prerogative to pursue the actions that our conation prescribes, actions that may result in the rerouting of cosmic energy to perpetuate the consciousness chain.
We may be able to travel back and forth the consciousness chain, in consultation with observable elements in the chain, our actions opening vistas about which our conation was hitherto inept. What life ultimately means may indeed then become self-evident.
