The thought that the supreme value is survival value—the thought, in other words, that it is absolutely necessary for us to go on living—is a basis for life which takes the joy out of life and is really contrary life.
The biological process that we call life—with its marvelous proliferation of innumerable patterns and forms—is essentially playful. By that I mean that it doesn’t have a serious purpose beyond itself. It’s an artform like music and like dancing. And the point of these art forms is always their present unfolding; the elaboration of an intelligible design of steps and movements through time.