All humans are different

  
   Us as humans are fascinating creatures, we have been created to make an impact on the world, to do something that will be remembered by society.  We were born into this life with a goal of happiness, and prosperity. All humans want to be special and different, we all want to be individuals and express ourselves as our own. We tend to believe what the internet, media, and others tell us. Humans are so naive and will believe almost anything told to them. We tend to rely on the internet, media, and other people to bring excitement into our lives, and to teach us how to "be ourselves" when in reality we are still being what others tell us to be subconsciously.  

    Today's society has this assumption that we all have to be alike, we all have to buy the same clothes, have the same phone, drink the same drinks, and eat the same food. Humans today don't know what being an individual is. Us as humans tend to follow in the footsteps of people we idol, we follow celebrities for their fashion advice, drama, and their daily lives. Whether we know we are doing it or not, we tend to do things in our lives that the media or celebrities have reflected onto us. As much as we say we are our "individuals" I am not even sure we know what being an individual is.

    To be a women, man, or artist, means to be an individual. To be an artist you have to be able to express yourself through other aspects such as, painting, drawing, sculpting, and dancing. Even though artists may make "unique" art, there will always be an influence from something in the world driving their art. To be a man or a women means individualism, it means constantly striving to be nothing but the best you you can be. We are taught that "all men are created equal" we all have our equality and our right to be ourselves, have our own opinions, and express ourselves as we please. We may be able to express our opinions, and beliefs as we please but, if a group of girls were to go out shopping together, how likely do you think it would be for each girl to buy things because its what THEY want, not what the group wants?

      When I think of what it means to be a human I think of our destiny, our path that we are all set to travel, some people think that God determines our path for us, and we live our life on God's terms. I personally think that we, as people create our own paths, our lives are constantly changing and that changes our path, everything we do in our lives reflects on our journey in life. To be a human means, being yourself, and to live your life to always make yourself happy. When I think of being a human I think of expressing yourself and not caring what other people think. The definition of Individualism is, "the habit or principle of being independent or self reliant." We should not live our lives to please others, people who truly want to be apart of our lives with come into them liking us for us. We should not have to rely on the opinions and activities of others to influence how we live our lives.

     "Our insistence on cognitive knowing may have already robbed us of some of our capacity for being human." When I read this quote I interpreted it as a way of expressing how the act of gaining knowledge and understanding that knowledge help us better create ourselves and to also understand others and their actions. By always being taught new things in school, at work, or even just by living our lives we are never going to truly be our own person, things will always be influencing us, there will always be things about ourselves that we want to change, alter, and make better. The media will always be creating new songs, clothes, shoes, and food that we "have to try". That's why being a human and being an individual is so hard, we have so many things in life that try to make us into someone we are not, its hard to stay true to yourself at times. In order to truly understand what it means to be a human, is almost impossible, we are all humans, just trying to explain ourselves to other humans. 



    

   

    

     

What It Means To be Human To Me

     What it means to be human can be answered in many different ways. A human is a lump of skin, bones, tissues, and organs that come together to form this amazing organism that has evolved and developed into the earth through history. It is amazing to think how far our species have come since the dawn of time. We have evolved through millions of years to get to our current beautiful form of life through advancements in technology,  education, and challenging how far we are able to push ourselves as humans and we now know so much about ourselves as a species that it is hard to even grasp our minds around. We have been categorized into communities and formed to the culture we have been brought into..but what it means to actually be a human is something we still don't really understand.

    To be human means to be special and unique in each and every one of our own individual ways. No human has the exact same genetic blueprints or the exact same life or thoughts or feelings. Each and every one of us is unique and beautiful in our own way. Being human has never been easy. We all grow up and most of us face some sort of tragic or distressing events in our life that somewhat shape who we become and that have formed our unique personalities that define who we are and where we stand in society. We all have unique skill and a specific purpose and to be human means to fulfill that.

  Being human means to create. I believe that a humans purpose is to leave some kind of imprint in the world behind them. We may create life. We may create new advancements in technology. We may create and generate new ideas. We may create art or music, but in one way or another very human is building up a legacy that they will leave behind in this world someday. Art helps humans confront these issues by letting us express our mind and feelings into a physical form. The imagination, and creativity runs from the deepest parts of our brains, through our hands and into reality. Art is a way to bring idealism to reality. It connects us in a way that nothing else quite can.

  To be human means to feel. It means to feel pain, or love, or excitement, or embarrassment or anger. Everyone feels emotions on the inside that reflect who we are on the outside. We all make mistakes, and we all feel these emotions at one point or another, no matter what for we come in. No matter what color we are or what gender we are or what ability/disabilities we may have, we are all composed of the same element.  Every living human feels emotion that define who we are. The quote "Our insistence on cognitive knowing may have already robbed us of some of our capacity for being human" I think means that we should look more open-mindedly at things. we are so determined to find answers and give concrete definitions, and form ourselves to a set standard that we are losing touch for the actual meaning of life. We should stop picking and defining ourselves and just be human! There is so much abstractness for what a human is and what it is capable of doing and we may never find that out so we should live in the moment.



 

Human need & the pursuit of happiness

What does it mean to be human? I think this question is pondered by more than just this humanities class. People all over the world wonder what it means to be human, some more than others. Being human means being able to walk on two legs, think at a higher level, and being able to communicate to one another through many different forms. We have the ability to create new technology and grow as a community. Though this is true, it is so much more than that.

Being human means that you make mistakes. The saying “you’re only human” portrays this well. It means we are not perfect and we are not supernatural beings that never make mistakes. Not only are we “able” to make mistakes, but we can recognize our mistakes and learn from them. Learning is the greatest human attribute. We are able to continuously learn about the world around us, through textbooks and life experiences. We were blessed with the gift of being able to learn how to read, write and create.

The ability to express ourselves through art is another incredible human feat. We are able to take how we are feeling and paint a picture or sculpt a sculpture. Other people can then look at the art and interpret it to fit their current emotions. Art has the ability to connect humans through the impact art has on them. People who have felt the same emotions while looking at art are connected and can discuss the art and how it made them feel.

Though we may have different backgrounds, cultures, religions, beliefs, or political views, we all share the same wish. That wish is to be happy. It is inevitable that humans will fight about the subjects mentioned above but we have (or should have) the ability to overcome these differences and realize that everything we do, is done to increase our happiness. We were given the ability to have opinions and humans will fight over these opinions, but the sooner we realize we can come together and overpower the negativity is the moment we will finally realize what it means to be human.

Cognitive Knowledge- What it Means to be Human

When we look for friends in other humans, we usually seek out common interests, or values that hold a shared meaning, rather. Today, there seems to be an underdevelopment of connections throughout society, such as; commonalities like culture, religion, common interests in art, music, etc. Not being able to form a society with shared values and commonalities seems to be a rising fundamental issue that humans face today. The diversity doesn't have to be an "issue," per say, but I do believe that cognitively us humans have that need, or desire to be in a place where they feel they uniquely belong.

Just the very title of this blog post is a philosophical issue. What exactly does it mean to be human? How are we supposed to come to a rationalized answer to this question when there is not one aspect of us humans, scientifically, that is unchanging? With advancements such as cloning, gene silencing, and just about all of the unforeseeable nature of other technological change in biology, scientifically thinking it is almost impossible to come to a general consensus as to what actually makes a human a human.

Today, science encompasses every piece of the world around us. In fact, "our insistence on cognitive knowing may have already robbed us of some of our capacity for being human." As humans, it has become almost natural to seek out reasoning for "why" or "how" using observation within the scientific attributes of the world around us. I don't believe science can simply justify what it means to be human. Being human does not strictly pertain to our biological makeup; especially with all of the manipulative advancements in today's world. Being human means expressing emotion, holding experiences unique to ourselves, and expressing these experiences through art, speech, literacy, and so much more. Being human means to understand and distinguish the difference between ugly and the beauty in pieces of art. 

Conceptual expressionism is what it means to be human. Conceptual art allows us to confront our conflicting emotions. Being able to express our spirit, our freedom, our empathetic capacity by means of creativity through painting, drawing, etc. helps us form a proper understanding of the emotion we feel towards works of art and the reactions we have now. Humans hold their own beliefs and their own sentiments- it is how we express them that allows us to understand what it means to be human.

Being Human through my Eyes

Everybody’s definition of being human is different. To some it means that they have a body, soul, and a spirit and to others it means having the capacity to plan for the future, wonder, express ourselves creatively and feel compassion for others. Being human can mean anything. To me being human means expressing emotions, loving one another and using your power for good and not for evil. Humans rule the earth and we have so much capacity to change the world. Use your power for good, smile at someone and show compassion for others. Life is hard and as humans we have the ability to chose the way we react. “Being human is a given. But keeping our humanity is a choice.”

In our society, the words “be a man” are heard far too often. There is no definition of being a man. Being a man just means that you are a human who has male anatomy. Men can be sensitive, and they can be tough. When I think of what it means to be a man, I think of my dad. My dad is looked at as our protector and guardian. He is strong and tough, but has a sensitive side. If you look at what it means to be a man through an evolutionary standpoint, men were the hunters and gatherers, along with being the protectors.

When I looked up what some thought it means to be a women I was not surprised with the responses. Some thought it means using their bodies to get what they want and some thought it meant breaking out of the stereotype and being strong. Just like with men, there is no definition for being a women. I think being a women is equal to being a man. Women can be sensitive, moody and emotional. They can also be strong, brave and fight just as hard as anybody else. Way back in the stone age, women were there to be the caretakers, but now women are working and raising families.  I don’t think there is a definition for being a man or a women, I just think everyone should be themselves, whoever that may be.

As a non-artist I don’t know how an artist expresses, and speaks to the world through their art. Artists are just people. Their creativity sparks and carries their message.Through their art they express emotion, break down barriers and fight for justice. Art comes in all forms which makes many different types of artists, but regardless of their art of choice they are all just humans.

“Our instance on cognitive knowing may have already robbed us of some of our capacity for being human.” In our society we have norms and expectations. These expectations put people under a microscope and forms humans into stereotypes. Stereotypes hurt the capacity of people being themselves. We are put under such scrutiny to be the way society expects us to be that it can stifle our individual sense of humanity.

Being Human

        If you were to look up what a human is right now, it would come up that the definition of a human is a human being, or a person that is not an animal or an alien. This definition, while correct, is the last thing that I think of when I think of a human. When I think of what it means to be a human, I think of a cluster of things. To be a human means to hold and convey emotions. To be human means to possess certain characteristics that make someone the person they are. To be human means to coexist with other humans. Let me elaborate.
        Emotions are essential in being human. They're our main form of both verbal and nonverbal communication and something that every human has in common. While we may not all possess the same exact emotion at the same exact time, we're always expressing some emotion and picking up on the emotions that others are expressing. That last sentence seems really repetitive, but I'm just trying to make sense. Being human means to be able to feel happiness or sadness or anger or pride etc whether you're a 6-year old caucasian girl from Milwaukee or a 43-year old Tibetan monk on the other side of the world. Feelings are always going to be universal.
         Another big thing in being human is that there are these core characteristics that we all have if you strip away alot of our layers. At our core, humans all have some sense of good & evil and some sense of an underlying moral code.  While this may mean something completely different for each person,  it's still there. We all also have this natural need for rituals, rites, and ceremonies that are specific to our cultures and upbringings. As diverse as humans are, we all hold these sacred.
         Humans also have this underlying urge to coexist. As much as someone may be an introvert or spend a lot of time in solitude, at the end of the day, they need some form of human interaction to get through their lives. As humans, we turn to each other, sometimes without even realizing it. We feed off of each other's emotions and share our emotions both verbally and nonverbally. Part of being human is our need to come together and subconsciously  find the answers to all the questions we encounter with our existence. Being human is our ability to figure out exactly what makes us who we are.

   

Our Humanity

To be human means to make mistakes... over and over and over.  It means to repeat history.   It means to try and fail and fall and fly.  Humans mess up, that's a fact, but for all the mistakes made, something good can come out of each one.  Humans can learn.  Our ability to look back at past experiences, and change the transgressions we might someday commit, is a huge part of our humanity.

The other part of what it means to be human is to have a desperate, though sometimes subtle, need to be different. People want to feel special.  They want to be unique.  They want to be different from each other, as well as from other animals. That's why we have words like, "humanity", because we believe we have transcended all other creatures, when in reality, we arent that different from the next species.  We use the term "animal" to mean crude and barbaric.  Take a look at the way we treat each other, and tell me that's not barbaric.