What is Human?

What makes us human?

I had a rather interesting discussion just last night regarding this very question. Odd, considering the whole thing started with three people (Myself and two amigos) chatting about an online game we play. Myself and one friend are totally brutal in said game and life means nothing to either of us. Funny how it evolved into such a deep and meaningful conversation on the nature of humanity.

So what makes us human?

Is it our genetics? Is it our distinct difference from other mammals in our sentience?

Consider this post a precursor of things to come next week. I should have all the posts written this weekend and the blog will update itself. I’ve long been told I’m cynical, and now you’ll get to see for yourself if I am. I shall warn you, I have a very twisted view on humanity. I have no faith in our species, and I consider us revolting. I know, I’m human. The self-hatred is not lost on me.

So why not start now? Why not makes this post the opening in my argument?

Because the weekend is coming. It will disrupt the flow of things. However, I also have a request to make of anybody out there. Consider the question at the top of this post. What makes us human? Prepare your own arguments, I am genuinely interested in other peoples viewpoints on this. Whether you take the scientific approach, the spiritual, the philosophical. What does it mean, to you, to be human?

Ideally I’d like people to write a blog post or two on this question and leave a comment somewhere here so I can read what you have to say. If not, just leave a comment with your thoughts and words.

“What does it mean to be human?”

Enjoy the weekend everybody.

Facing down the gauntlet

Exams start next week, and as per usual around this time each year I come to question the entire point of education.

Is it to teach us what we need to know? Hardly. We learn some facts about how volcanoes are formed, how to program a calculator, how to build a robot. We never get taught the things we really need to know. We don’t get taught how to socialise, how to find others, how to be happy. We are taught how to obey, conform and crush imagination.

I have a friend who has spent her whole life, up until college, in a single sex school. End result? She’s uncomfortable around guys. Oh she’s loosened up, definitely, but she has spoken often about how she can’t “find someone” because of how uncomfortable she is.

We move through school being degraded and treated as inferiors by our teachers. We move through college, and though we learn to be self sufficient, we are taught to conform. We spend our whole lives trying to achieve some piece of paper which says we have the same qualifications as hundreds of thousands of other people. What sets us apart?

How many people don a suit, work from 9 until 5 and disappear? Remembered for a generation, maybe two and then….gone. Vanished.

And yet I’m too much of a coward to break the mould. I have been broken, I am forced to conform. I am stuck here.

Save yourselves and break out. Do something new and amazing! Be remembered!

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