Life

The epitome of self-reference systems; a life-form talking about life itself.
But after watching Saw a second time, I realized that life is literally taken for granted. How often have we wondered about what it REALLY means to be alive? We go on obliviously through our time spans continuously looking for that greener grass on the other side, basically walking in circles. While, in fact, fulfiling the needs of others. That Harvard/Yale/Mit degree doesnt give YOU anything, it just gives society another sucker to push around slightly more than others.

And when we start to look after our OWN needs, we end up killing oursleves slowly through pleasure. To some its drugs, to some more its cigarretes, booze for even more and neuron-killing television for almost all the rest. We continuously breathe in carbon, sulphur and nitrous oxides while soaking in electromagnetic radiation either from billions of coulombs of charge from household wiring everyday or through cell-phone reception. Some of the many benefits of living in modern society. My eye cells are being cauterised as I write this, and so are yours. Right now.

Pleasure defines ALL our voluntary actions. Whatever we do willingly is to increase our own pleasure, directly or indirectly. But pain defines our existence. Forget those retarded deluded kids who slit themselves, this applies to everyone. The only time we are glad to be alive is immediately after feeling physical pain. Like after I nearly passed out after gym and had to breathe like a fish without gills for an hour. Or when the bottom half of my big toe got cut neatly off and I had to "walk" 2k home. Lets not forget the compounded chickenpox. I had rarely ever felt more alive. This is true only for physical pain, mind you. Psychological pain affects the very organ responsible for making us want to live.

Which explains why it may be possible for a rich white kid with a good family from a suburban neighbourhood to slit or kill himself while a sane individual stranded in a desert or island with little to live for will still exercise every possible means to escape and live. Even if it involves pain.

Pun intended, this is the painful reality of our existence.

The single most defining characteristic of life is its desire to remain... alive. (assuming that the organism's CPU is functioning normally).
The single greatest mystery about life, in fact, is life itself.