pseudolife

Noun

pseudolife (countable and uncountable, plural pseudolives)

1. Something that has many of the characteristics of life but which is not life.
   • A carved slave in the grave of an Egyptian aristocrat was just stone, a painted basket of food was just a painting, until consecration endowed them with a pseudolife, a ghostly existence between this and the next life.1970, Peter Fingesten, The eclipse of symbolism, page 21
   • He could remember anything, in that short life or in the long, long pseudolife that followed, provided only that he could remember where to look for it in his stored memories.1980, Frederik Pohl, Beyond the Blue Event Horizon, page 202
2. An inauthentic life; a life that lacks something necessary for being meaningful or worthwhile.
   • Yes, it's a kind of suicide, this being committed to the pseudolife of mass organizations — daily suicide. Under the command of television you surrender your life to this or that organization.1974, Willem L. Oltmans, On growth - Volume 1, page 86
   • In everyone there is some willingness to merge with the anonymous crowd and to flow comfortably along with it down the riverway of the pseudolife.1983, Professor Ladislav Matejka, Benjamin A. Stolz, Cross Currents 1983: Yearbook of Central European Culture, page 15
3. A false image of one's life.
   • Such pseudolives leave one out of touch with one's self, one's feelings, one's desires, needs, and hopes. Illustrative may be the homosexual who has pretended to be otherwise, or the "family man" who has remained faithful but is depressed and miserable.1974, Quality of Life: The later years, page 136
   • People live to be seen, sometimes even “faking life” in hopes that their “pseudolife” goes viral.2015, Ramani Durvasula, Should I Stay or Should I Go?