Connecting to the Big Picture

Caeley Sibley


            Connecting To The Big Picture

Defining exactly what it means to be human is an impossible task. We all have flesh, bones, a brain and a beating heart, but there is so much more to it. Each individual is unique in their own way but we all seem to share some similar qualities that make us human. Throughout history we have used many methods to try to define our species,including  mythology, psychology, historic fact, and even science. We have found these similar qualities even in our oldest ancestors.  Through humanities class we have gone into great detail to define and relate to these aspects. Each unit had a key piece of humanity, that all connected into one big picture by the end of the semester. In the first unit we looked at the way we think and the actual biology/anatomy of the human brain and why we may use our brains the way we do through symbolism and story. In the second unit, we looked at the role that nature endures in human life and how we value certain things in our life that is sacred to us. We tried to define what makes a human human. In the Love, Beauty, and Art unit, we dissected each of these concepts, and how they all connect to one another, also connecting to the previous units. Next, in the Law and Ethics unit we saw the human desire for rules and the concepts of morality and ethics. We tried to define right from wrong according to our own moral beliefs and found the philosopher we were most like in our own thinking. Lastly, in the final unit we looked at the journey through the meaning of reality, through the books and charts that helped us come to these conclusions. We learned about enlightenment and the truths within humanity. During the class we discovered how all of the units come together to connect to one big picture in defining humanity and the experience of human life that unites humans as a whole. It’s one big journey.

 In the first unit of humanities,  the basic foundations of human life were introduced and we learned how our brains make us more advanced than other species. We looked at the actual anatomy of our brains, to explain the way we think and do. We learned about the use of symbolism and picture throughout history and how the use of oral stories evolved us through civilization. We learned how the evolution of man can explain the evolution of the brain and how it works. For example, the Shlain packet taught us about the right and left brain characteristics that form our thinking and coordination. He showed us the  human brain’s division between knowledge and learning. We looked at the right side (emotion) of the brain versus left side (logic). We looked at the way humans learn and how some people are more dominant on one side or the other, while some fall in the middle of left/right thinking, like myself. Ever since our very first ancestors, we have been using stories and mythology to make sense of the world and explain how humans came to be. We looked at the separation between oral story and written story and how that affects brain and experience. We learned how experience differs from being told or reading about the topic due to the sensory and body language. One of the creation stories we studied was Genesis.  It showed the creation story of how the world, and humans were created, based on the Christian Bible. We also looked at the creation stories of other religions and compared and contrasted them, to connect it to previous and later units. One of the packets we read by John Bowker wrote about the uses of different aspects of the human experience including music, art, and ritual. We were then able to connect these aspects to the brain functions from the previous unit. I got to touch  a little more on this idea through my research paper on mythology. I learned just how much oral story has impacted culture, even today. Through this unit we learned that through the evolution of man, no matter the time period, or culture, we all seem to share similar aspects of human experience and how our brains work, although each of us are unique.

     In unit two, we began to go into depth about what it means to be human and the difference in nature, being the human characteristic, versus nature being the unindustrialized-outside world. Each have an important part in humanity. We learned about the sacristy of certain objects or places to different cultures, and then were able to define our own sacred spaces.  In the Australian Aborigines documentary, we learned about trance and how connected the aborigines are to nature, which made me realize how disconnected we are from nature. With that, we realized that some people are more connected to nature than others as well, such as Timothy Treadwell in the Grizzly man documentary. He was just a little too close with the bears. He tried to fight instinct and ended up suffering. However, Herzog, the director of Grizzly Man believed that nature was much harsher and less forgiving than what Treadwell was seeing and that there is a great separation between man and animal that is not to be crossed. We came to conclusions that different civilizations look at the placement of humans in nature in different ways, some victimizing it, and some worshipping it.  Some poems portrayed nature as being dense and cruel , some described it as a victim against man, and some described its sweet innocence. In the Chinese poem, Waters of Lung-To, the  insignificance of humans as opposed to nature reflected some of the Chinese ideas on nature’s importance. The Chinese landscape painting we studied in the Second Nature packet shows similar ideas by depicting the houses and industrialization of humans as a miniscule component compared to the overwhelming nature components of the painting. I believe that discovering your own relationship with nature is part of the human experience. No matter where we go in our lives, nature will be there. The last part of this unit included sacred space and we did projects on different sacred spaces around the world and blog posts on our own sacred space. It connected to the nature piece of the unit because it made me realize that there was an element of nature in all of the sacred spaces, no matter it place or time period, which shows how crucial nature is.


In unit three (my favorite unit) we saw the connections in life between love, beauty and art. These three things are a crucial piece of the human experience as well. We are naturally drawn to them as part of the human experience. Each person has a different opinion on what they believe to be beautiful or ugly .Or what's considered art or not. Or what they define as love. This unit really made me realize that even though one would think our class, full of similar people in age, and culture would have the same opinions on art, but in reality, we had extremely different views. While we interviewed an artist, we found out how someone who specializes in beauty and art looks at art as oppose to our own selves. In The Picture of Dorian Grey, Wilde was able to show his ideas of the connections between love, art, and beauty in a moral sense. Each character portrayed love, art and beauty in a different form. When Basil creates the painting of Dorian, they all see beauty in the painting. Basil has love for art and beauty and Dorian has love for the youth and innocence of it. However Dorian suffers at the idea that his beauty will fade with age unlike the painting. This is where his moral dilemmas are shown. Art is unique because it never fades or dies. It only mimics the ideal perfect form, which is what Aristotle believed was the only way art can be experienced. In this unit we also learned each of the major philosophers ideas on art and beauty, and we were able to find similarities and differences among them. I found myself sharing a lot of the same philosophical ideas as Kant. In the Aesthetics packet his opinion on the subjectiveness of beauty describes how I also feel about beauty in art and people. Something doesn't necessarily need to be visually appealing to be beautiful if you can connect and relate to it.  In our First Thoughts packets as well as our blog posts,  we explored how the ideas of love, art and beauty relate to our own lives and our own personal opinions on what they mean to us. In unit three, we also explored the idea of truth and its connections to beauty. We wrapped up this unit with the movie, The Shape of Things. It combined just how much truth and beauty interact and contradict each other in our society. Adam is considered “not beautiful” but throughout the movie, Evelyn gently persuades him to show the true him. The movie also connected how love can hide the truth and infect your thinking. However, it also showed how love will  shape the truth because through his love for Evelyn, Adam adapts to her ideas and changes the true him. His gullibility to the truth allows his love to cloud his judgement as he morphs himself into what he believes Evelyn wants him to be. His love for her hides the truth, making him become more beautiful as her art project on human persuasion.These are all aspects of human nature and similarly to Adam, a lot of times suffering and tragedy go hand in hand.

In unit four, we dove into law, ethics and human frailty. We looked at what we consider to be our own ethics and I decided that that was a really hard concept to grasp because our ethics change so much depending on our environment or situations. Our knowledge and our understanding of right and wrong make up our laws and ethics. Many ideas we have on ethics and morality and taboo are similar culture to culture. We looked into why this is and how certain things such as murder, stealing, or adultery are always a sin. Is it a cultural influence, or is it religion? Religion dictates many people's views on  ethics and what they consider to be acceptable. The Hebrew Bible’s Ten Commandments showed us their set of rules to live by that is very similar to the Christians Ten Commandments, that we looked at. Repeating concepts such as stealing, murder, adultery, and desire  are seen in both sets of commandments. We wrote a blog post about what our own commandments are and later in the semester connected thee to what we believe happens after death. In Crimes and Misdemeanors, the main character murders a man and at first, he is suffering through the fact that he is a killer. He was initially horrified by his actions, but in the end he gets away with it and is no longer phased by it even though he knows the right thing to do would be to turn himself in. This concluded our Laws, Ethics and Human Frailty unit because it showed how we have laws to monitor and enforce these taboo behaviors and as a part of the human experience, we not only need these rules, but we somewhat crave them.  I think that guilt is also a part of the human experience. It is in human nature to feel ashamed for going against our societal standards/ religion.  We need rules to avoid chaos and as humans we tend to feel lost without this dictation.

 In the last unit of humanities class, we learned about the inner journey of life and the meaning of human reality. Through nearly all of the works we analyzed this semester, there is one aspect of human nature that stood out to me- suffering. It seems that suffering is part of everyone's journey in experiencing life. In Siddhartha, through his search for enlightenment Siddhartha experiences many aspects of human nature. He experiences suffering before he finally experiences fulfilment. He had to suffer before he could be enlightened. In Hamlet, Hamlet also experiences suffering and loss at the loss of his father. The other characters suffered due to Hamlet's suffering as well. Before hamlet got justice, he suffered. In The Epic of Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh loses his best friend Eniku, which causes him great suffering as well. Even in the children's book version of Gilgamesh, the suffering was present but in a more friendly way because parents try to hide from their children the harsh reality of life- we all suffer at some point.. It seems that part of what makes us human, what makes us relate to one another is, is suffering. That is the inner journey of life.  Maybe it's part of our journey to suffer before we can finally reach our own enlightenment, like Siddhartha, Hamlet, the prisoners in Shakespeare Behind Bars, and everyone else did. No matter what journey we endure, suffering seems to be the only component that is always present  before we are enlightened like Siddhartha. We have to experience life's worst components before we reach nirvana and this is the human reality. Suffering is just part of human experience. The last unit connected all previous units and made me realize how harsh, yet beautiful life can be.

Through humanities class we have learned about ourselves as a species and as an individual. We have dissected the key components of what makes us all so alike. We all have such different journeys, yet we somehow experience the same things and that’s what makes us human. Humanities taught me the many different components of human experience that we all endure, and have been since the dawn of time. In the first unit we learned the history and biology of the human and by the last unit, we were able to determine the components of humanity that we all endure. It seems that to be human we must experience. This class has taught me a lot about myself and the importance of making connections, as well as analyzation of texts. I didn't realize just how much everything connected into one big picture until I wrote this blog and now I finally understand.  I am glad I ended high school with this class, because it opened my mind so much about life and experience.