We can say that there is life in the Universe
Wherever conditions are sufficient to allow it
For we have learned enough of the association
      of energies, materials, and effects
            to predict the presence of effects
                  on the basis of having first perceived the presence of their
                        necessary energy and materials.

We have not asked ourselves what of our living will actually
      change for us
When we identify life elsewhere in the Universe.
The answer to that question is
"Nothing"
For facts do not dispel Belief,
Facts drive Belief;
And Belief is always denial,
A running from What Is,
Known or unknown.

Asking why there is Life
      is an invalid question
            because Life exists
Wherever conditions allow it.
Rather consider how you would send a message
      not so much from place to place
            as from Now to a subsequent Now
                  across entropic Time.
Inscribing your message in stone would fail,
For stone, a resultant and not a process,
      cannot maintain its integrity
            across entropic Time.
You would need instead a means of transmission
      capable of maintaining itself against entropy,
            adapting itself to the vicissitudes of Condition,
                  and perpetuating its Process,
                        across entropic Time.
The bearer of your Message would have to be
That which we call Life.

But as the water molecule knows nothing
      of the wave
So we know nothing of the Message
If indeed there is a Message
For Life exists wherever conditions allow it
And it is quite a conundrum to consider a Message
That only exists if the means of its transmission exist
And always exists whenever the means of its transmission exist.
It could therefore be extrapolated that Life itself
Is the Message.

And so are you now considering the possibility of Agency
      behind such a Message?
Did you notice when this discourse moved
      from the reasonably factual
To speculation?
Can you now perceive how the deceptive seriality of thought
Blurs the transition from Fact to Speculation
So that you now find yourself involuntarily comfortable with and comforted by
The idea that you somehow play a role
As a sentient particle of a Medium
      that unknowingly transmits a Message for an Agent?
This is how not knowing, unchecked against What Is
      or uncheckable against What Is,
Becomes Speculation,
Hardens to Opinion,
Becomes Belief.
After only a handful of subsequent stages of this evolution
Nation will be rising against nation
And you will feel secure in killing those who believe contrariwise
As you bask in the love of an imagined deity.

Do not pretend to yourself that you know what you do not.
The congruency of your mind to What Is,
Not fantasy,
      is your fullest possible living,
And all human suffering not traceable to disease or natural calamity
Arises from Belief.

Is it not glory enough
To have been born
And to be able to beget,
To be driven to tears merely
By the perception
Of your own transience,
Of a cloud,
      a touch,
            a birth,
The dying of a day
Or a star?