Could you live without chess?

No. I would start carving my chess pieces if they disappeared one day.

So ...

I wouldn't die or anything , but the world is always in flux , nothing stays the same, change is always happening, I would find something else . . maybe pickup sticks.

Even pictures play chess

the last 5 years I have studied chess, read a book /played a game or something like that every week. - there would be a void I guess if I gave it up completely.
I would probably play ps3 instead.

Even dead we will play chess

I could live, but that would make my brain a vegetable. 

It's big a mystery to me how I can actually live with chess.

But vegetables can't think.  Well, neither can fruits or nuts.  But I can't prove that.  Who knows? Maybe if my brain turned to a vegetable I would play better chess.  

That is a neat chess piece in post #3.  I would like to see the entire set.

The way I have been playing chess lately there no doubt is more going on in a cabbage than in my mind.

There have been years in my life when i didn't play any chess although this was before the internet was around. I am sure if i had to i could fill the void with something else. More reading, more movies, more time with my girlfriend, more video games. Life is possible without chess but it would be am adjustment.