JT, I see what you are saying but life is too dependent on the physical things. If your heart stops you die, if you don't eat you die, if all your vital organs don't work you die. So life is not some inner spiritual mystery. Life is dependent on you taking care of your body, otherwise you die.
What really makes you who you are is another story. Maybe your genectics, your environment and what you see while growing up. Look at the different cultures and how they act differently. Also if the chemicals in your brain gets out of balance you can go nuts. So I see life as physical with some sort of emotional inner self developed by our surroundings and brain developement. I think we can develope an appreciation of life by thinking inwardly, what ever that is.
I'm glad you have a way to appreciate life, sometimes I think maybe life is more than we can understand, but then I wonder when exactly did we get this life force. When the sperm met the egg, or maybe when we began to get air. Who knows?
Ken P.