Define Life - expanding my understanding

In my previous posts, Define Life and Define Life - another perspective, I have talked about how life may exist in places we never looked for it before, perhaps even right before our very eyes. Recently I watched a talk at the Museum of Natural History in London, about the Drake equation. The Drake equation predicts the possibility of life existing in the universe at the moment, and of we discovering it. Making a few assumptions, it seems to predict that life does indeed exist in the universe, depending on the value of how many years it takes for a civilazation to discover and communicate using radio waves.
After the talk I spoke with the gentleman delivering the talk. I discussed my views and discovered one missing piece of the puzzle, which I had disregarded. One of the defining characteristics of life has to be the ability to reproduce itself. Ummm... that's probably what distinguishes us from a test tube filled with a slowly-reacting chemical mixture. Point acknowledged - it was not what I had considered earlier. Of course, does it mean that Mules, for example, or sterile worker bees are not alive as well? Probably not examples in the same league, I accept, but something to think about none-the-less.
Another aspect which we need to consider is limitations of perception. Apart from the fact that we would only be able to comprehend life existing in up to 3 dimensions, the question of time is also a relevant one. Does time pass really slowly for creatures with small life spans? And does time pass quickly for creatures with long life spans? For example, do protozoans, bacteria etc perveive things much quicker? Do flies see things moving more slowly than humans do? Is that why they are able to flay their wings at such an incredible rate? Is that why they are able to move out of the way before getting swatted?
Turning that on its head - are we unable to perceive some forms of life because our perception of the way the universe is changing is just not in sync with their lifecycles? Are we missing out on life forms that exist for only fractions of seconds and are gone before we can detect them? Ae we unable to detect life forms that change extremely slowly and therefore we don't notice even though they might be right before our eyes? To them, we possibly might be super-short-life-spanned beings which they don't even register. Imagine beings for whom thousands of years register only as a second. Impossible? Definitely possible, I think. No evidence... that's true. But possible? Yes.
More later...