The Meaning & Explanation of Life In Under 300 Words

Tuesday, 15th April 1997

So let's get this straight. Life eventually occurs where extremes of heat brush against extremes of cold at very high pressures. Hence the highly specialised and evolved species of fish and ridiculously coloured invertebrates living at the bottom of the ocean near vents in the earth's crust since it all kicked off.

This is where we get our duality from, right? We split everything into night & day, black & white, men & women, good & evil, because we carry the genetic memory of our origins; that we were born from opposite extremes that by their nature were never meant to meet. Right. And there's the Vostok Sea which is some x-hundred metres beneath the Antarctic ice cap where living organisms have been found that are 500,000 years old a piece.

And there's the Movile caves in under a field in Romania (thanks Caroline); several caverns way underground spanning some 120 sq km, linked by an underground river, the only way to each of them is underwater; the atmosphere is poisoningly sulphourous, there is no light, and so far these two speliologist blokes have discovered 33 brand new life forms.

Know what that makes me think? That the meaning of life is to survive no matter what. Or where. By any means necessary. And that wherever there are temperature differences and solid/liquid conditions, say for example just about anywhere in the universe where there's stuff, life can, will, and evidently did pop into existence, find itself a rock to throw itself upon and cling on for enough millions of years of evolution until there are enough for one of them to send you this e-mail. So it's bound to happen. By accident.

But then you probably already knew that.

Keep on photosynthesising.

B