What is life?
A few centuries ago when I was in Grade 11, my biology teacher wrote that question on the board at the start of the year. We learned a few concepts that year and memorized a bunch of definitions, but we didn’t answer that question, even just in a strict biological context.
What is life?
A week or so ago, Jim Taylor wrote a post about life that evoked some of my high-school confusion. Is an individual ant or termite or bee alive, given that the characteristics we generally associate with life–including the ability to reproduce–are vested in the collective?
A bee landed on my arm the other day. She didn’t sting. I assume she was a “she,” because the worker bees who gather nectar that the bees inside the hive turn into honey to sustain the queen and her children are always female.
This particular bee wasn’t aggressive. Or defensive. She just clung to my skin and looked around.
We had a pleasant little chat before she flew off.
I think of her as an individual. A lone bee, foraging on behalf of the hive, able to choose for herself which flowers – or persons —she would visit today. But those who study bees – called Melittologists or Apiarists or Apiologists – say I’m thinking incorrectly. The living organism is not the individual bee but the hive as a whole. (See pdf below for the entire post.)
It got me thinking.
What is life?
Considering that it takes two sexually mature humans–one male, one female–to reproduce, would we say that individual humans aren’t alive? That our basic unit of life is the heterosexual couple, just as the bee’s biological unit can be seen as the hive? That doesn’t seem right.
What is life?
Considering that we can’t become and remain fully functioning members of the human family without intensive interactions with other humans, would we say that our individual lives are a mirage? That doesn’t seem right.
What is life?
Considering that human babies can’t even survive on their own, would we say that infants aren’t full of life? That sure doesn’t seem right.
What is life?
Well, I dunno. Strict biological definitions and fine distinctions are not where I live, you should excuse the expression. But sometimes, in addition to knowing that some ideas don’t seem right, I get a sense of things that do feel right. That happened this week in our backyard as I chased the late-afternoon light in the foliage.
Some leaves are gleefully turning colour; some are stubbornly green. Of the happy warriors, some are yellow-green, some are red, some are orange. Against the backdrop of their non-changing cohort, they make something more beautiful than any of them by themselves. Something more complete.
What is life?
What’s with the questions? As someone more or less in the turning-colour phase of my life, it’s maybe not an answer but it’s something–reassuring? comforting? pleasing?–to think of my life less as mine alone and more as part of the whole community’s life. To think of my colour, whatever it is at the moment and wherever it’s headed, as part of a lovely tapestry of human life.
PDF of Jim Taylor’s post:
At my advanced stage, life is what I make of it, and doing the best I can.
Tom
Tom – 🙂 I’d say you are!
As an intensely visual perceiver, I will join you in the tapestry. The Renaissance concept of human life as a song or a dance or both, as in John Dryden’s “A Song for St. Cecilia’s Day” (1687), provides background music for the tapestry, which also appeals to my senses. “From harmony, from Heav’nly harmony/This universal frame began.” Encompassing all of human life as a unity from the moment of Creation to the moment when the final trumpet sounds “and music shall untune the sky,” the poet keeps track of the individual voices and instruments, who mark the day of one saintly woman in particular: Cecilia. The glory of the individual is not lost in the magnificence of the whole but contributes to its grandeur, the choristers as well as the soloists.
Laurna – Thanks for adding two aspects: the timeline-of-Creation one and the musical-backdrop one. Just yesterday someone was telling a story about an intensely auditory perceiver, who talked about a given tranche of music (the stuff that was popular during a given military posting) as being part of the soundtrack of his life.
That phrase certainly strikes a chord with me — a high-frequency one, of course. I will add it to the phone App!
Laurna – 🙂
Excellent articles, great thought. Gives new meaning to “it takes a village to raise a child”
Eric – 🙂 Indeed it does take a village. Glad you enjoyed it.