What Does It Mean to Be Human?

What does it mean to be human? A question that came across my mind many times yet I find my self struggling to find an answer to it. I cannot help but suspect that at one time in the history of thinking that people believed that it meant that we were spiritual and that we could make choices and were capable of aspiring to higher ideals… like maybe loyalty or maybe faith… When I think of what it means to be human I think of compassion. Of being able to see others' wan
ts and needs not just your own. It's to be able to feel emotions. To fall in love. To be sad when something happens to you. To feel pain when you get hurt. It's to know that in a point in your life it's all going to end but you still live everyday like it's your last. But I guess all other animals do all these things as well.
So how do we differ from all the other animals in the world. I guess for two main reason. First of all we're on the top of the evolutionary pyramid. No one eats us :) That's basically it. WE on the other hand kill and destroy the nature . For what reason? Oh to make our life easier. But there is another main reason we're on that top of the pyramid. Humans like no other animals live on abstract thinking and not instincts. All animals live according to their instincts while we think before we do something. So for me It means to be physical - with all of the hurts and pleasures that come with it. It means to be spiritual, with all of the hurts and pleasures that come with it. It means to be eternal - with all of the rewards and punishments that come with it.
Shira Hebel 10 B