On Life

Every question (the big, really big questions) revolve around the meaning of Life.

Some of them try to answer what it Is.

These questions usually come up at dinner, and then quickly we move on to the next thing, usually a problem of the day.

The questions usually start out with: “wait, what the hell is going on here?”

As the most intelligent, conscious, thoughtful creatures supposedly on this planet, we sure act in our ontological tact: as humans, doing the human thing. Love, laugh, cry, live, die.

The big questions are usually immaterial in nature, as the question itself is conceptual. What is love? What is life?

A lot of times with science, as it is based around empirical evidence, done through experiments with devices, we find the answers are usually found in the material.

What is life but the DNA that outlines its function?

What is love but a beating heart?

Any man with open eyes sees that the good things at the market are bought with money. The material possesses the material. We try desperately to avoid these questions, and close our eyes to truths, if they are uncomfortable.

You mean life is governed by the material? A baby cannot grow without milk.

What about giving? The care one shows to another with no need for reciprocation? Even that act of love, and intentionless care, came from the material: someone had to work for it. Even if it wasn’t you.

So the material begets the immaterial. Or perhaps it is all material, and as the Buddha said, our minds are prone to delusion.

A lion knows he must eat. Goes out and gets it. Done story.

But for us, we delude ourselves into thinking that there might be a different force at play. And only if we had access to it… perhaps, just perhaps, our material problems would finally be solved.

Am I crazy in thinking this on the individual level? When this is clearly what is happening at the national and global? If we invent this new machine, time and again, we’ve seen an explosion in the material.

Imagine a mountain, with one side in shade (just go with me on this), and the other covered in light. One side has fields of green, and the other is covered in dirt.

Imagine inventing a way to cover the whole area in light. And now, one side begins to grow trees.

The conceptual begets the material, as the material powers the immaterial.

What came first?