Life Is a Game of Survival

Let’s imagine a game.

In this game, everyone is trying to stay in — forever.
But there’s one rule:

You only stay in the game… if you get copied.

That’s what genes do.

They don’t eat.
They don’t sleep.
They don’t think.

But the ones that get copied more often… are the ones that stick around.

📖 A Quick Reminder: What’s a Gene Again?

• A gene is a tiny instruction, written in DNA

• It tells cells how to make proteins

• Proteins build everything — your muscles, eyes, brain, even your feelings

• Genes live inside the DNA of every cell

Now here’s the crazy part:

You’re made of genes, but they’re not “trying” to help you.
They’re just doing what keeps themselves going.

🧠 But Genes Can’t Think… Right?

That’s right. Genes don’t have brains.

They don’t say, “Hmm, how do I survive today?”

But over millions of years, something weird happens:

• Genes that help the body live and reproduce get copied

• Genes that hurt or do nothing get left behind

So, it looks like genes want to survive — even if they don’t know it.

They are like players in a race:

• The ones that help the body win… get copied

• The ones that don’t… disappear

🧬 The Gene Game

Let’s say there are 2 genes:

1. Gene A makes strong muscles

2. Gene B makes weak muscles

If strong muscles help you survive and have babies, then:

✅ Gene A gets copied
❌ Gene B slowly disappears

That’s natural selection — the body stays alive, but the gene is what really wins.

Genes that copy better → stay longer → become more common.

👶 Genes Don’t Care About One Person

Here’s something strange:

If a gene helps you, that’s great — but only if it helps you:

👉 Stay alive
👉 Have children
👉 Pass on that gene

If the gene helps you stay alive but never get copied, it’s out of the game.

So genes “care” about being passed on, not just keeping you healthy.

Even helping others only matters if it helps copies of the same gene survive.

🤖 Genes as Survival Robots

You can think of every living body — a bird, a whale, a human — like a:

Robot made by genes

The robot’s job is to:

• Protect the genes inside

• Move around and find food

• Grow up and have babies

• Then pass those genes to the next robot

Your body is the robot. The genes are the real players.

💡 Big Idea

Life looks like it’s all about the body…
But deep down, it’s about which genes survive and get copied the most.

It’s not magic. It’s just survival math.

🧠 Recap

✅ Genes don’t think — but they act like they “want” to be copied
✅ Genes that help bodies survive and have babies get passed on
✅ Genes that don’t get copied… slowly vanish
✅ You are a robot built by your genes to help them survive
✅ Natural selection is the competition of genes