How do YOU define “life”?

Interesting subject in my BigThink weekly newsletter today.  It’s about defining “life.”  I’ll include a link to the full article here (it's short and worth the read, IMO ... it might give you some new ideas), but the takeaways are as follows:

• Defining life has long been a deceptively tricky problem.
• With only Earth's lifeforms to study, scientists might overlook strange forms of alien life on future space missions.
• While traits like energy intake and reproduction seem universal, the search for life must remain open to unexpected forms, writes astrobiologist Dirk Schulze-Makuch. [highlights by me]

Question: Were do you draw the line to "what constitutes life?"  Is life just a fuzzy ill-defined place on the "life continuum?"  Or, is it a hard and fast call for you?  If so, explain.

 

(by PrimalSoup)