There are exactly two stable ways to bind three quarks. Stack them, obey one exclusion principle, and you get the periodic table, the oceans, and eventually something that can read this sentence.
Every level below life is one-directional. Quarks compose nucleons, nucleons compose nuclei, nuclei and electrons compose atoms, atoms compose molecules. None of them has any access to what it is made of. A carbon atom holds no model of quarks.
Life is where that stops. A thing made of quarks worked out what quarks do. The chain bends back and touches its own first rung — and as far as anyone knows, that happens exactly once.
This site is an instance of it. Quarks, arranged into something that draws quarks.