Where did life come from, and how did it begin?
I have published a dozen papers on the notion that the beginning of life involved simple biochemicals that functioned as heat engines while they were thermally cycled inside convection currents: thermosynthesis. You can easily find my papers by googling my name, maybe in combination with thermosynthesis. It would help to know the basic principles of thermodynamics, such as what a heat engine is.
Check out Nick Lane's new book Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death
https://www.amazon.com/Transformer-Deep-Chemistry-Life-Death/dp/0393651487
Basically it had to start with some ongoing cycling process that produces both energy (like ATP) and the carbon-based building blocks of cells
The following references can help to understand the core mechanism that led to occurrence of life and the ways it operates.
References:
[1] Ragnar Larsson & Abdul Malek: "The Transformation by Catalysis of Prebiotic Chemical Systems to Useful Biochemicals: A Perspective Based on IR Spectroscopy of the Primary Chemicals: Solid-Phase and Water-Soluble Catalysts", Applied Sciences 11(2021) 10125, DOI: 10.3390/app112110125
[2] Maya Emmons-Bell, Fallon Durant, Angela Tung, Alexis Pietak, Kelsie Miller, Anna Kane, Christopher J. Martyniuk, Devon Davidian, Junji Morokuma & Michael Levin: "Regenerative Adaptation To Electrochemical Perturbation In Planaria: A Molecular Analysis Of Physiological Plasticity". iScience 22, 147–165 (2019), DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2019.11.014
[2] Jiri Kroc: "Emergent Information Processing: Observations, Experiments, and Future Directions", preprint of a review on ResearchGate (August 11, 2023).