As I watched a superworm squirm on the fangs of one of my tarantulas for over an hour, I noted how brutally cruel life is, contrary to the deluded beliefs of nature-lovers and PETA freaks. As the impaled worm continued to struggle pointlessly, it occurred to me that nothing in nature dies a happy peaceful death. Any given organism will either be consumed by a predator or by disease. Then there's injury, cancer, congenital defects, weather, stupidity, and any number of minor killers. If somehow our ugly little organism does manage to avoid all of the dangers that we gleefully snuff out its fragile life, it arrives to old age where it basically become too weak to move and starves to death.

How pleasant.

Everything dies in terror and/or pain. Only those of us who can get a good shot of morphine in our final hours can go out with a certain amount of glee. Well, I suppose a person who just won the lottery and then got fatally shot in the head would go out happy, but that's kind of cheating.

Of course, life ain't no picnic either. Broken bones, arthritis, allergies, parasites, cavities, ingrown toenails, baldness, glaucoma, sobriety&ldots;these are just a few things that would certainly make one wish he/she was dead, but won't directly kill you. Don't even get me started on obstetric fistulas. (Look it up for yourself. It's far too gross to describe here.)

So what's the point of life, if all it does is make us miserable until our screaming, agonizing demise? Well, that's the million dollar question, isn't it? People have fumbled for answers to that question since we became people. Are we here because some omniscient, omnipotent, yet invisible and secretive being decided to make us? Are we here to fulfill some spiritual wish of the universe? Are we here because the Earth wants a nice plastic coat?

As you surely know by now, I'm against beliefs based solely on faith or wishful thinking. At the most basic level, though, I can break down the meaning of life into 3 simple steps.

1. Survive until breeding age

2. Breed as much as possible

3. Die

That's it. We are here today because our countless ancestors (human and otherwise) succeeded in their purpose. Any future offspring will only exist because we succeeded in our purpose. Even if we gain the ability to travel to other stars, those three steps will never change. The meaning of life is to breed.

To what end, you ask? Damned if I know. I doubt that the first RNA molecule thought about that when it began replicating itself. Even in Genesis, Adam and Eve are told to "be fruitful and Multiply." The whole "grovel before me or else I shall smite you" thing seems almost like an afterthought.

It sure would be swell if there was more to the universe than the material world. If the universe is doomed to be come cold and dark as the stars use up the last of their nuclear fuel, all that breeding and dying seems kind of pointless. Assuming that humanity survives to the very end, is the last human bound to freeze to death as the last star winks out, or is there some greater purpose for all of this?

It doesn't really matter, I guess. I'll be dead by then.