meditation on
THE LIFE-FORCE
by
ROBERT J. LEWIS
_____________________
Let
us presuppose a life-force, not unlike Henri Bergson’s élan
vital, that requires a host, something material, organic,
to exist, much like thought requires language in order to exist.
Let us, furthermore, presuppose that anything that is or exists,
if it were endowed with the powers of choice, would choose to
be rather than not be. None of which pretends to explain or answer
to why there is anything at all as opposed to nothing, only that
one or the other implies its opposite, just as the temperature
25 Celsius implies unlike temperatures, for if there were only
and always one temperature, the concept of temperature would disappear.
So if
it’s in the interest of the life-force to preserve and perpetuate
itself, it will look for or ‘gravitate’ toward the
host or hosts that best optimize its perpetuation. On earth we
find the life-force present, that is demonstratively immanent,
in everything from single cell organisms, to marine life, to plants
and animals and humans. If nothing else, the life-force cannot
be accused of investing all its eggs in one basket. Since most
forms of life have been around much longer than intelligent life,
we might falsely assume the life-force is best preserved within
them because they have weathered the test of geological time.
And while it is true that in the face of either local or cosmic
disaster the ameba and cockroach will fare better than intelligent
life, I maintain the life force must still prefer Homo sapiens
as its ideal host for any number of self-serving reasons.
First
and foremost, we can infer the life-force -- whose mystery and
magnificence have been best revealed by the disciplines of philosophy
and religion -- wants to be known and appreciated for the wonder
that it is and inspires since we can choose to engage our species-specific
cognitive faculties to further the appreciation and illumination
of whatever subject is under their consideration. The diminutive
ant, despite its exponentially numerical superiority and ability
to survive unforeseen events that will lay man and most beasts
permanently low, cannot begin to contemplate the life-force much
less appreciate it, and for this fact alone cannot receive the
same life-force affection as its more fragile, sentient earth
mates.
Throughout
the history of human thought some thinkers have spoken of the
life-force as the supreme deity or the deity as the life-force,
even though the deity, unlike the life-force, may not exist, and
therefore may not be responsible for everything that does, including
the life-force. While we will probably never unravel the who or
what came first, the life-force would rather be mistaken for a
deity that doesn’t exist than not be acknowledged at all
or granted the status of existent, which is why the life-force
probably deems us as, not its ideal, but preferred host.
Prior
to all other considerations, and that includes its attraction
to intelligent life, the life-force’s first duty is to survive
and perpetuate itself. It gravitates to humankind because intelligence
is the best guarantor against a cosmic catastrophe which science
says is a certainty: one day the sun will burn out and with it,
all life on the planet Earth. In respect to this certainty, Homo
sapiens is the only living species on the planet capable of contemplating
existence on another planet, solar system or galaxy. If man should
survive his most (de)pressing current crisis, the runaway toxification
of his planet from which there is presently 'no exit,' he will
have millions of years to prepare for a final departure from the
erstwhile ‘good earth.’ So it is only natural that
the life-force take a special interest in a host that has the
potential to manifest itself elsewhere in cosmos.
What
the life-force cannot do is operate its host, that is make the
host serve its well-being. Thus, in respect to its investment
in Homo sapiens, the passive life-force can only witness in silence
the former’s promising beginning give way to a culture that
foretells its demise. And when we factor in man’s innate
bellicosity and sundry lethal options (chemical, nuclear) at his
disposal, the life-force’s predisposition to put its eggs
in many baskets must rank as its supreme pragmatic gesture.
Then
again, who's to say the life-force hasn't already invested its
energies in hosts and habitats other than Earth, which means its
eggs are in baskets that human intelligence can neither qualify
nor quantify, and renders the assumption that we are its best
hope a presumption scaled to an Earth-only paradigm, the fact
of which does not dilute the privilege and pleasure derived from
contemplating the life-force’s unverifiables.
Suffice
to say, the fact that humans are capable of not only recognizing
that they are miraculously invested with the life-force, but can
choose to interrogate its purpose, constitutes more than sufficient
cause to designate the wanting to be at the life-force’s
bidding for as long as the latter provides the former with breath
as the ultimate dispensation.
