WHAT IT MEANS TO BE A MEMBER OF HUMANITY.
What does it mean to be human? That is society’s question that still remains in today’s world. To be human is to have emotion and language. To care for your family, friends and peers is to be human. To speak their language is also to be human. Humanity is what separates us from animals. We are at the top of the food chain. We are the fittest and we survive. Why? We have intelligence, logic and reasoning. Intelligence in humans is to make complex inventions crucial to our survival. Humans have logic to avoid those careless mistakes that could cost us our lives.
We also have reasoning to get ourselves out of danger against an opponent, whether it is physical, mental or emotional. We are the only species on Earth that knows of one more possible cause of death, old age. Most of us also believe in an afterlife, those that have religions anyways. Every single species on Earth has needs, but we have one more reason of why we are human. We also have wants. We could want something and not need that particular thing at all. We also have factors that shape us, that make us human.
What shapes a human’s life? Society, environment and nature all shape every human in this world. Society’s morals, customs, and cultures can influence how a person behaves in front of others. We humans also tend to imitate our parents and peers in what they do, thus environment influences our humanity. Maybe we just are born the way we are. It’s in our genes to be human, it’s our nature. Our species are the only ones that can be spiritual. Our spirituality also influences how we are human. While society and environment influences how we are human, we have a level of responsibility alongside with society also.
What is a person’s level of responsibility for his actions? What about the level of responsibility for society? When we perceive a particular act of society, we can choose to follow it or dismiss it from our attention. Isn’t society just a bunch of people choosing to act a certain way or dismissing it from their attention? Individuals are more responsible for their actions than the responsibility of society for influencing those individuals. In fact, we are ninety percent responsible for our actions and society is only ten percent responsible for our actions. We know why we are human, but we don’t know why we were put on Earth.
What is humanity’s purpose? Why are we here? The reasons of us dwelling on this earth are mostly spiritual in nature. The reasons could be philosophical as well. Most people have a religion on this earth. Christianity states that humans are here on this earthto care for God’s creations and worship Him. The philosophical side of the question is that we were put here on Earth to obtain new information and gradually evolve to greatness.
We are perhaps the only species on Earth to try to philosophize and spiritualize about why we are here. Yet another reason why we are separated from animals themselves! All of these factors combined make us a unique species on Earth. Yet, with all this information on ourselves, we still have countless questions of our origins. We still wonder today how we came to be. We wonder how we are such a unique species. We at least know one major detail of ourselves. That is, we are Homo sapiens. We are humans!
from http://socyberty.com/philosophy/what-it-means-to-be-human/
THE BASIC HUMAN WANTS
After thinking for a while, I came up with the following list of those fundamental things that every human wants:
- attention
- importance
- companionship
- entertainment
- sex
- knowledge
- time
- relaxation
- success (at any challenge/goal)
- earn/save significant (relative to the individual) amounts of money
- and even though it’s sort of implied: power to get any of the aforementioned items
http://www.itstime.com/jun97.htm good website but too much to copy and paste.
Maslow's hierarchy of needs
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