What Does It Mean To Be Human?
In the Eyes of a Few Professionals
Jonathan E. Harrison
What does it mean to be human anyway? This question is a question that has amazingly sent human beings on journeys to find their roots since the emergence of the ability to think for themselves individually. In a world where it seems that every person¡¯s meaning of this age-old question is a little different, where can man go to find the answers? Well, going to those whose profession is to find just these kinds of answers certainly seems to be a start. Since we collectively understand up to this point in our evolution that biology, psychology, religion, and the very study of anthropology itself are most likely the most basic places to begin, perhaps it would be reasonable to ask a biologist, a psychologist, a religious leader, and even an anthropologist, respectively.
Asking a biologist on what it means to be human would tend to lead the seeker to find out about all the biological laws that govern life on a biological platform. However, if the seeker only remains within the walls of biology, then he may not reach the understandings of the three other core fields in his search. However regardless, if one who is looking for an answer were to ask a biologist, he may find that man is a biological system just as the earth and all its inhabitants are biological systems. Because we have a physical body, we know that we are at least biologically meant to do something in this world. Through our research in biology, we can find that we are able to exercise and improve our biological health through the use of this tool. We can eat, drink, exercise, sleep, rest, and even give comfort and healing to others who are in need. We can also feel temperature, hear and produce sound, and use any of the five physical senses that we have been endowed with in this life. So what does it mean to be human to a biologist? Those who ask such a professional may find that it means that we can exercise our will in the physical plane and produce change for the improvement for society in the life that we live. We can feel, touch, hear, and manifest anything we desire physically.
How about a psychologist then? What might it mean to be human in the eyes of one? Searching out a psychologist would lead those who are asking to find that being human means that we have been endowed with all sorts of intangible actions and reactions within our own intelligence. Adding to what the seeker may have learned from his journeys with the biologist, he may find that a human being has an individual will power that cannot be understood through mere biological terms or knowledge. The power of the mind is one of the most beautiful manifestations that one could begin to fathom in his journey. The discovery of such a body (the mental body) and the power thereof would hopefully lead the one who thirsts for its understanding to find the self-empowerment that lies within its reach. Seeking out a psychologist to find the meaning of being human would lead one to find that human beings not only have the power to physically change their surroundings through biological means, but also through the use of their own mind and the bending of his perception of reality therein.
A religious leader is another such professional that we can visit for some answers as well. Searching for answers to humanity¡¯s existence through the religious leader would lead the sojourner to find out that religion itself is a tool that uses this essence that pervades the entire universe called spirit and its own respective tool called spirituality. Religion, since its creation, has been used as the vehicle, fueled through the power of spirituality, to bring human beings into a closer understanding of those forces in nature that lie outside the boundaries of both biology¡¯s physical body and psychology¡¯s mental and astral bodies. Religious leaders have been humanity¡¯s spiritual leaders in a world that has not universally manifested its own spiritual self-empowerment through the ages. They have helped to further the evolutionary process and raise their followers into an even closer understanding of their surroundings in this life. From a religious leader, and even more so from a spiritual leader, the person who hungers for answers would most likely find that life is so much more than what we perceive in this life that we live both biologically and psychologically combined. The person would find that the universe itself is infinitely expanding, and that there are always secrets that wait to be discovered and used as tools for his own betterment and empowerment.
From an anthropologist¡¯s standpoint on what it means to be human may be a combination of all three of these combined to a degree, supposing that he has some background in the aforementioned. Through the anthropologist¡¯s work, the interconnection of the above three professions can be found, and a further understanding of our environment around man can be discovered. From the anthropologist, we find out about the efforts and contributions of Charles Darwin. Though it can be argued wither Mr. Darwin may not have been correct on every single point he made or not, he has been recognized as the main voice of the theory of evolution itself. Through our own understandings of the process of evolution and the cycles in life, we can find that he has influenced society¡¯s views to a great degree. He has also challenged religious leaders who had held such sway over the popular beliefs of the people they ruled, and by so doing has challenged the people as well to re-evaluate what it means to be human from all aspects. Through this movement, we are all challenged to use all of our faculties to find what it really means to be human after all. An anthropologist would be able to take the previously mentioned fields of study and give us a much grander picture of how all of the fields fit together in the great cycles of this element known as time in regards to the human being¡¯s existence. To be human is to live in this grand existence to learn, play, manifest our own realities, and take part in the joy of living and sharing.
Being human certainly may be different to each and every one of us, and we may come to find that those initial appearances can be deceiving when searching for answers. Attempting to see this meaning through the eyes of the biologist, the psychologist, the religious leader, and the anthropologist sequentially would lead us to higher levels of understanding in the world around us. Though each field is responsible for each specific field, those fields are not at all aligned within a vertical hierarchy, but within a horizontal platform of understanding. We may find that we all share a common thread of meaning and understanding, that in the end, being human may be much simpler than we had ever dreamed as a social entity.