So what is life besides the physical act of breathing and having a heart beat? Many would like us to believe that life is just that, although more religous types will add that a person also has a sole that directs them. I propose a different concept of life: the psychological individual. One is alive if he believes that he is alive, and that he is free to make his own choices. A person who is unconscious or sleeping, might technically be alive by medical or popular defination, but during sleep or unconsciousness he is not adding anything to society, and if anything he is taking away from society.

An individual lives when he is free to think and live as he so pleases. Life without the mind is not a human life, but that of a creature. That is why we view the behaviors of the insane to be primative or absurd. Life is precious when an individual contributes to a society. These contributions can exist in many ways, and actual action may not be neccessary. For example, an unconscious Grandfather in a hospital might allow a deeper form of reflection, and therefore is precious. Moreover, he might recover and be able to contribute something to society through word or other deed, and therefore is precious. Life deviod of this context is not life, but a mere biological existence.

The elevation of human life in the biological sense over all other things is not only sicking, it is insane. Humans are no more special then animals, and certainly not as valuable as the machines that humans make, out of rare and limited materials. Such a declrations differs from mainstream thought, but it seems to give an interesting insight as how life really exists in humankind. So if life is not really the biological sense, then what is it?

Life is freedom, it is about being an individual and doing both the right thing and finding ways to be a moral person. Not moral in the church sense, insomuch as moral as being right in the ways that you believe to be right. It is a place where you can dream freely, and live without being someone totally alien and split from yourself. Society demands a semi-dehumanization that is split from yourself, one that is socially compatible with others, but it also must recongize your unique human identity and embrace you for being and individual.

Yet our society fails to recongize this as life—we see the biology of life, the act of actually existing and participating in society. We get upset about sucide, and we don't think much of imprisoning those accused or guilty of crimes. The individual doesn't really matter, only that he is still alive. It seems that we live in a fallacy of life being important, and not the psychology of indivdualism or freedom.