Alive

I look around and stay in awe of the act of “being alive.” We humans, the animals, and plants have all made an incredible accomplishment in the Universe. Most of the place is just rocks and dust, but somehow those of us on Earth put those raw materials together to create fantastically complex organisms.

But there was something even more fantastic that got life started. Somewhere in the early stages of Earth a primitive cell WANTED to stay alive. Hell, actually it just wanted to eat because, somehow, not eating and dying became unpleasant. And thus, we had the driving force that began to push evolution.

Soon after the first cell, cells began grouping together. Not on purpose, but simply because those that teamed up had an advantage of getting food. As the weather and atmosphere changed, different clusters fared better under various conditions. Holy Batmobile, evolution was now at full speed.

Those warm-blood marsupials evolved from metatherians during the mid-Jurassic period. Throw in millions of years and before long these buggers are playing with fire and packing out the malls at Christmas. Yeah, they are us.

But, but, but...

Some people tell me that when we die we will be reincarnated and others says you go to Heaven, but you must say the three-sentence prayer first. There is no scientific evidence to support our wishful thinking. For poor me, when this fragile, vibrant thing called life is taken away from me, that’s it.

Purpose?

Of course there’s purpose to life. We want to eat because it’s uncomfortable to be hungry. We want to reproduce because it’s ingrained in us, and it feels good. We don’t want to die because living seems more fun. For us higher evolved animals we have this freaky added fear of what might happen afterwards. Will we be put into a TV sitcom? Will we burn in a lake of fire with Hitler and Ted Bundy? Will we become a cockroach? Will we….

The purpose of life, to me, is to honor life. After all it took three supernovas to create elements that were dense and complex enough for us to create cell walls, and reproduce, and LIVE. This is a universe of hydrogen, man, so why are we here???

Honor Thy Self

First of all, we are only here for a brief moment and for most people in the world life will suck. If you are one of the lucky ones not born in abject poverty be extremely thankful every day. You can start by taking care of yourself and honoring the miracle of YOUR life. Don’t eat junk, don’t do drugs, don’t suck smoke in your lungs, and exercise a LOT. Honestly, in your cozy, wealthy American world you may not have any concept of sickness or death, but your bad habits will bring you down, and you’ll never get to see humans land on Mars.

Honor All Others

Do animals and trees have a consciousness? OF COURSE they do. Because they all want to eat, and nothing wants to die. That, baby, is consciousness. It is important that we respect ALL life, not just humans. Sure, call me a Zen Buddhist.

Religion

I am sorry to anyone who I may offend, but I am unable to believe in anything that can’t be proven, at least beyond a doubt. Yeah, I believe in wind even though I can’t see it. I feel the molecules hitting my skin. That’s more evidence than what exists for the 1,000 gods created by humans during the span of written history. For starters, click HERE for a book on 200 gods. These are just the popular gods from Roman, Greek, Celtic, and other major cultures. This list doesn’t count those weird gods found in primitive, South American villages. Please don’t tell me about your one RIGHT god, the Republican Western European god who has a great gun collection. If you do, I’ll share with you the story of the god Thor, who was a pretty cool dude.

Conclusion

Okay, you collection of cells. Go live your life with honor and dignity. Dedicate yourself to food, reproduction, and avoiding death. And take it a step further by helping to make others have less miserable lives. Go where you are called and at least give a little to others as you travel on your life journey.

— Todd

Photo credit: n8kowald / Foter / CC BY-NC-ND