I really liked the arc you drew to describe what life is about. So I'm not disagreeing with it, just making a technical scientific point fwiw -- the reason life thrives is simply that it can. The physical world generates all sorts of combinations of molecules, etc. One of those combinations is DNA, which turned out to be self-replicating. If it didn't self-replicate, it wouldn't still be here.

The physical world just throws mud at the wall, and life happened to stick, just as planets formed and happened to stick, or water flows downhill, as if it intends to find a way.