What helps life sustain life?

Answer 1

A living being is an organised group of atoms and molecules.

"Organised" means that it has developed the ability to sustain itself by taking the energy required for that from its surroundings, but also to create other living beings like itself.

Nothing helps life to sustain itself other than it's own ability to:

grow,

move,

feed itself,

reproduce.

Basically, a worm isn't any different than a rock. It's all just matter.

But the worm is aware of itself. It needs energy to continue that awareness (however simple it may be), and thus it needs to feed itself. In order to find food, it must use its senses to understand the surroundings, and it must move.

Then, it will procreate, because all living beings have the instinct to create groups of atoms similar to themselves.

Why?

Well, that remains unanswered.

But we can speculate! It is possible that at some point, in this universe, a group of atoms connected and became aware of themselves.

Then they asked:

"Okay, what the hell is all this?"

So that group of atoms started what we all know as the Evolution of Life.

In other words, that single cell from which all life on earth derived started to create variations, so many of them, to find that optimal shape - that optimal species.

The criteria for that optimality may be, simply, the ability to continually exist...

.. to answer the question of that first living organism.