This is primarily a personal investigation into the meaning of everything. With this in mind, I'm not entirely sure what I'm saying here, but it might come out of the conversation...
I'm interested in a concept I'm calling maintenance (you're welcome to come up with a better word, or to point me towards some nihilist thinker who might have a better word)
At its essence, by maintenance I am referring to the idea that we're given* things when we're born and as we grow and develop. We maintain them for a period of time, refine them, improve or degrade them, then we hand them on. Those things could be genes, or some of the organic materials we're born with, materials that have been travelling with our genetic line for millennia. It could be the unique patchwork of barely alive viruses that are kind of part of us, or that have been absorbed by us, or the genetic lineage of our biome in general.
This all works for the coincidence that is life. The accidental ball of chemical and electrical interactions that began those billions of years ago, with no other purpose other than to continue to refine itself. But I think the idea doesn't end there. Much like I was given a bunch of selfish DNA that I maintain for a period of time, I am also given culture. I am given language, personality traits. I take those traits, I maintain, modify, improve and degrade, and pass them on to others. Much like the DNA in a saber-toothed cat, some of the modifications I make to culture aren't ideal, but I pass them on all the same. And while I don't have much of a say in the language I'm given, or my culture in general, there certainly is intent. Intent on the part of those who give it to me, and intent by me on what I pass on to others around me.
Unlike a staphylococcus bacteria, I have the ability purposely change, evolve, develop the things I'm given. As the collection of things I and others have been given to maintain develops over time, the list of things that can be purposely changed grows. I can now take a supplement that messes with the staphylococcus bacteria I was given during birth. Or, if I choose, I can purposely reduce myself to the base elements that I am made up of - which is itself a form of maintenance (I was given them, I'm passing them on in a modified format) - A stone couldn't do this, neither could a staphylococcus bacteria.
Whether we're improving or degrading the things we're given is subjective to a degree. One could consider that me passing on the iron in my body to the bacteria and fungi that disassemble it as a good thing. The DNA in me might disagree if this disassembly accidentally prevents it from being passed on and it degrades into it's base elements.
I think there is a certain morality involved. I haven't quite pinned it down. But I feel like the more I pass on the better - that my maintenance of the things that make me up ensures that most of what I am given is passed on. Certainly this is true of culture. Culture is fragile and fragmented. It is not an element. It doesn't exist without life - whereas the gold in my body came from a star and I'll be passing it on in some form whatever I do. They do overlap in subjective ways. Is it better for me to do my best to hand on my DNA, rather than just pass on a collection of atoms? I think morality functions within this framework as an assessment of what I have passed on, and whether those have enabled continued existence - for example continued existence of culture, or a culture. Which leads to that whole conversation about what traits are beneficial to culture.
I need a question... Are we just kicking the can down the road? Is the purpose of existence to just maintain itself until the cold heat death at the end of time? Am I just being nihilistic in my void of religiously defined moral purpose? Or does maintenance, particularly of the cultural aspects of our existence provide us with purpose enough to give meaning and moral framework to our existence?
* In the universal "Ooh look at that stone on the side of the road, I'll have that" way. Not necessarily in the "I am a god, I'll leave a stone on the road for that person to find" way. But I guess that's open for discussion too.