What Does Being a Human Mean to You?

This is the Tribesteemup biweekly question. If you are unfamiliar with the Tribe, it is an incredible, mutually supportive, community abundance group. We seek to support like-minded individuals by pooling our upvotes and adding in some generous donations of steem power from some truly amazing steemians. We support topics such as:

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We want to help people who are impacting positive change in the world. You can check out our core values in this cool infographic. The 8 pillars were written by @kennyskitchen, and the graphic was put together by @hungryhustle. You can find it down at the bottom of this post. You can follow our curation trail here

We do some powerful questions here on the Tribe! This one has me thinking and talking, occasionally to others and sometimes to myself. There are lots of places this can go. Are we talking simply about what separates us from other animals and what that means? What does it mean spiritually or physically? Are there obligations or responsibilities?

I was thinking of how different humans are from other animals and how smart we supposedly are, and then I remembered a video of Koko the gorilla talking about how stupid man is sometimes. Koko was smart, and smart enough to understand man does really bizarre and destructive things. In any case, anyone who has ever read Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy knows we aren't the smartest creatures on this planet. We aren't even second. Everyone thinks it's the Dolphins, but no one suspects the mice.

Of course the capacity for self reflection is generally associated with being human, but again I think about Koko. She clearly had that capacity. Generally speaking, though, this does differentiate us, but what does that mean? What does it mean that we can see ourselves? We can look out and see what we have accomplished, good and bad. We can see our mistakes, and some of us can own them. We can discover and develop new and better ways. We can look and see how all the systems interact. We can strive to do better.

Does it mean anything if we don't reflect back and make things better for ourselves and the world?

I feel like being a human does come with certain responsibilities. Our knowledge and capacity for reflection combined with our greed and capacity for destruction indicate some level of responsibility for this planet. If we see what we are doing and have done, I think it's good to make it better, and I think most people actually want that. Most people want to make the world a better place. It feels good. There is so much other life on this planet, and all of it is here of its own free will. I don't see Earth Mother or animals as helpless victims, but they are impacted by our actions to a degree that the reverse is not true. Like Uncle Ben says, “With great power comes great responsibility.” We don't need to protect them so much as we need to stop dicking them over.

Then again I think this being human is a gift. I think we were created to give God experiences they can't have as a being who is total oneness. I think we are here to play and love and live in joy. So maybe being human means playing and experiencing and feeling and diving in deep, enjoying food and flowers and sex and water and soft fabrics and cute babies and love and tears and laughter and heartbreak, the whole thing. The holy and the broken hallelujah. I like that.

As always I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this super rich topic.

The 8 Pillars Infographic

Much love, y’all!

As always, all pics are mine or pixabay unless otherwise noted.

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