Have you ever noticed that some people just seem to be a lot more alive than others? You can see it in children – some are bright-eyed and interested and involved in the world. And some are … not so much. Especially in the more miserable parts of the planet, where “dead eyes” suggest emotional detachment, a kind of animal-like “one foot in front of the other” approach to existence.
I don’t think biology’s definition of “life” is necessarily useful. Instead, I think that life is really a spectrum, and even within a species, some people are clearly more alive, more energetic, than others. Even the words we have for people who seem to possess extra oomph, like “vivacious” or “lively,” contain the word for “life” within their structures.
It is much harder to define “life” than you might think. It has been pointed out that it is not easy to prove why a cauliflower is alive and a cloud is not: both, after all, are born and grow and cease to exist. Both respond to stimulus. Neither seems to be particularly “smart.”
Fire is also seemingly “alive” – it, too (and on a much faster timeline than “living” cauliflowers) grows and reproduces and responds to stimulus and even dies. People are rare in the animal kingdom for being drawn to fire – most mammals avoid it or flee. But there seems to be something inside us that is magnetically attracted to energy, even unintelligent energy (e.g. some notable athletes, actors and politicians).
Which leads me to my perhaps-unreasonable thesis: I want to say that the metric for “living” is determined by both energy (as above) and adaptation.
People are on top of the animal kingdom because of our mental ability to find ways to adapt in the widest range of environments (we can live where cockroaches and mosquitoes cannot!) The extension of this is that the more a person can grow (mentally/emotionally/spiritually), the more alive we actually are. Which suggests that some people, those who do not grow or adapt, are not necessarily at a higher state of life than non-human animals. Life is not binary; it is very much analog.
I would go even farther than this! I don’t think a thing needs to possess a physical presence to be alive! Think of the proverbial “beacon of freedom,” or the power of ideas that have swept the world, from religions to Marxism. Ideas, like viruses (and cauliflowers) can be born, develop, grow, adapt and even die. Ideas have movement and momentum, the ability to infect people with hope and energy.
I contend that the more that a person shows they are able to grow above and beyond their limited and physical selves, the more alive they actually are. And how do we grow? Through those around us.
Is this not the goal of all holy and productive relationships?