What Does It Mean To Be Human?

I was asked what it means to be fully human at the beginning of the semester. Today, at the end of the semester, I reflect back on the definition of a human and what I said and juxtapose it with what I believe is a better definition for being human.

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What does it mean to be human? Does it mean you share sympathy and empathy? Does it mean you bleed red and walk upright? Does it mean you have the ability of critical and complex thinking? Or does it mean that you share a culture, ethnicity, language, or religion with other communities in society?

Early in the semester I said that being human is a two way approach: a scientific approach and a "living" approach or perspective. I stated that to be human means you have to think biologically and how the science behind the person works: bipedal, two eyes, a mouth and nose, two arms, two legs, a heart and brain. A human has all those characteristics and more. Of course, one may argue that not all humans have those characteristics; in other words, they have deformities that give them a different appearance than their fellow neighbor. Additionally, there are animals such as apes and gorillas that share very similar biological traits as we do. Hell, we're considered cousins in the animal kingdom because of our common ancestor and our lineage converging at one point down in history. Arguments can be made about the biology of a human, because if that's what qualifies for one to be human, then apes, gorillas, lemurs, and more are biologically human. It is easy to separate and distinguish a human from a giraffe (obviously) but it isn't for other mammals (biologically at least). Strip a person of skin, muscle, tissue, fat, and leave them with just their bones and it is very similar to that of a chimpanzee.

As stated, we all share a common ancestor. Humans and other apes share an extremely common ancestor, which at one point we diverged from the lineage and became known as homosapiens. We are a branched out mammal known as human. The biology is what separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom. We can eliminate fish, reptiles, amphibians, and more because of biology. We are left with a handful of animals like the ones depicted above. But differs us from them? What specifies us more?

Language, culture, diversity, and reasoning. That's what furthers our title of being human. Without these things we are not human, just animals part of a kingdom fighting for dominion in this world. Philosophy, literature, religion, critical thinking and problem solving, mathematics, culture, music. All of this makes us human. The ability to sympathize with others in pain. The ability to mourn a death and express an array of emotions. To live instead of survive. To work towards achieving a goal. To extend a hand out for someone in need and give them a hand shake or hug. To complete kind gestures. We are human because of these things. To express ourselves in art the way Monet, or Manet, or Picasso did is liberating and beautiful and makes is human.

We are human because we know how to express ourselves with love, kindness, sorrow, sadness, guilt, and frustration. We are human and we make mistakes and we recognize that and move on. We build large monuments honoring the long forgotten or the long remembered. We build houses out of wood, clay, concrete, and metal. We build metal towers so high in the air that our ancestors would never believe it was all man made. And when those towers come falling down in a puff of smoke and cover neighborhoods with gray, we join together and help one another. We hold hands, sing together, remember, and we come out stronger by rebuilding our characters and rebuilding the fallen tower into and even bigger one that serves as a monument.

Humans respect and fight and humiliate one another. We are not perfect. We have flaws that we know about and live with. We tend to the sick and wounded. We celebrate in festivities and community activities. We share a laugh. We make love, not just sex. We write poems about our surroundings such as the city and neighborhood we just moved into and the people who reside in them. We write poems about love and redoing what cant be redone. We write short stories to humor us and teach us a valuable lesson about kindness and forgiving. We make music that lasts generations.

Old, young, poor, rich. We know how and when to have a good time and share a laugh, the natural remedy to any wound. We appreciate the unappreciated.

We recognize art as medicinal and try to heal ourselves from the cruel and unjust that unfortunately lives in our world. We recognize ying and yang and try to better the world and our communities. We manufacture wonders that astonish people worldwide.

Looking back, I realize that being human means all of this and more. Being human isn't a two perspective thing. It is about creating a life that means something and sharing it with the world.

So, what does it mean to be fully human? Live your life and the question will answer itself.