What is life?

Everyone asks themselves this question at some point, and I'm not about to write about my thoughts on what life is... I don't know...

When I was young, I heard all the fairytale stories about what we would do with our time on this planet. Grow up, get married, find your soulmate, settle down, and as the story goes... live happily ever after... But the plot is very differant in reality. But is that life?

I've recently been watching the Saw films. I find them really good, and I am most intrigued by the mind of John Cramer. He believes people need to be re-born to appreciate life.. He's asking them to appreciate the motions that they go through..but is that life? If it isn't, what is it? to him, if your only hearing then not really listening, then you aren't living, if your looking but not really seeing you aren't living. It's all just motions..but isn't that what life is physically? Going through motions? Because appreciation is an emotion, therefore life is merely an emotion.

People always seem to be reaching or striving for life, trying to get at it... as if to them, what they are experiencing now, isn't life. To me, trying to reach at something, is merely a dilusion if your reaching for life. If anything, it's trying to get reach an ideal, and idea about what would make them happy. If they have this, then this is life, and therefore it must result in happiness... So what if someone does reach what their ideal was? Do they have life then? If so, then life is merely about living out a fantasy. What if they aren't happy with their ideal once it's reached? By their own premise they are at life.. therefore they SHOULD be happy.. So do they live a lie? Claim they are happy, and realise that this isn't actually life? If so, what is life then? Confusing...

Some people spend their whole lives trying to get life..but again, what is life? We have answers coming from everywhere, yet nothing definite. Sometimes I think, is this it? Is my fight for survival merely life.. cos then, whats the point? Just going to die anyways...

Plus, if you had life..how would you know? Cos, when someone is like, oh you need to get a life, or I want a life..... they are really saying, they wish they had something to do.... i.e they are bored at the moment...so therefore, would life be, the absence of boredom.... But surely, to experience life in all it's richness, you would need to experience the full spectrum of emotions, including boredom..

But, what I find contradictory, is, EVERYTHING is merely a motion. Even if you have 'life', whatever you do in it, is merely a motion, and the result of a motion, is an emotion..which again lead me to conclude, life is merely an emotion... a particular emotion that you want to feel... All it seems, is that life, or rather the motions you want to go through, are merely ones you enjoy.. For example.. take a typical Londoner... they get up at crappy o'clock hour, and go off to work... sit at some desk, doing menial tasks bored out of their tiny little brains, and then go home and have fuck all to do..Some people would say that isn't a life.. Why? Cos the motions they go through aren't satisfying..