How Cancer Suggests Cells Fight for Survival

Cells are the most basic thing humans generally agree on being alive- bacteria and single-celled organisms being a close second.  These primitive organisms are seldom aware of their existence.  They don't struggle for survival the same way other species do.  However, cancerous cells seem to be the rare exception.  The more I read about cancer, the more I realize there is a larger piece to the puzzle it's created; that either the cells are choosing to mutate, or the cancer is alive itself.  Up until about the 1970s, there was no indication that cells seek to live forever, much less that they were incapable of dying.  And never that a disease that wasn't a virus could be considered alive. 

Cancer prevents cells from entering apoptosis, the natural death cycle of the cell.  Instead, the cells live forever; that is, until the body infected by it dies, rendering its food supply non-existent.  It would seem that cancer is in control of the situation, that being the catalyst of immortality means that it's the one thriving off mutated cells.  A closer look reveals that this may not be the case.  It may be that the mutated cells, interested in their own longevity, are communicating with one another and metastasizing to other parts of the body, spreading news via cellular reproduction about the miraculous glitch in the genetic system that birthed them. 

Cancer's ability to adapt to treatment that threatens its existence tells me that the infected cells do not wish to die, that the cancer has "blessed" them with the fountain of youth, turning them into selfish gluttons after their former services as selfless conductors of organic processes.  Take Gleevec for example, a drug that cures one form of leukemia.  Most patients have a complete remission after taking the drug, but some experience immunity from it after their oncogenes were observed to change shape after prolonged use of the drug.  How could a drug that destroys a cell cause that same cell type to change the shape of its genes if it weren't fighting for survival?  Is it the cells that are fighting for survival, or the disease itself?  These are important questions to ask when dealing with this most mysterious of afflictions. 

The answer that makes the most sense to me is that cells, being organisms like us, are showing how capable they are of fighting for survival, that they are conscious of their existence in some primitive sense.  The genetic code that the cancer hijacks is being used by these cells to ensure their continued existence. When a cancer metastasizes, that means the secret's out and other cells want in on the action.   

I'm not a doctor and this insight shouldn't be considered academic.  The logicality of this explanation is appealing only to me, and it might make for an interesting discussion among the more open minded in the medical community.