A question so many people have asked but don’t know how to answer. Between the four most important texts read, The Storytelling Animal, How Stories Make Us Human by Jonathan Gottschall, Friday Night Lights by H.G. Bissinger, and In These Girls, Hope is a Muscle by Madeleine Blais, this simple yet complex question is answered in the smallest ways. Asking someone what it means to be human can get you a huge variety of answers, from foolish to thoughtful. Most people can’t answer this question with thought because it 's too dense for them. Jonathan Gottschall implied in his book, The Storytelling Animal, How Stories Make Us Human, that we are all just animals that go through life living off of our own made up and sometimes truthy stories. …show more content…
The way humans interact with each other, feelings, thoughts, behaviors, it all stems from different sections of the human brain. Funny how a thing that weighs a few pounds has so much power to it. A switch of a nerve and someone is completely different. Experimenting with different things is also what makes us human. We find errors and fix them, we feel something we don’t like and we do everything we can to not feel that way again. We are human and we are bound to make mistakes. Being human is having faith in ourselves and each other to do what is right. Being human means to feel so many emotions at once you cannot explain it in words. That is what it feels like when asked “what does it mean to be human?” There are so many different things that go into it, you just know what it is, but you can’t explain it.
In conclusion, being human involves too many things to explain at once. The question “what does it mean to be human?” can be studied and talked about for years. The books The Storytelling Animal, How Stories Make Us Human by Jonathan Gottschall, Friday Night Lights by H.G. Bissinger, and In These Girls, Hope is a Muscle by Madeleine Blais, give us just a small glimpse of what it means to be human. Being human is feeling emotions, learning from them, exploring, and many other things. What does it mean to be human? Well, it means to be
What is it that makes us human? Is it our actions, our sense of purpose, or our ability to keep our mind on as well as perform complex tasks? Is it that we analyze our own mental processes, as well as the processes of others? What exactly is a mental state, and what creates it? Is it a level of attentiveness, an impulse, or an emotional state? What is it that allows us to experience these things? The answers all lie within our brains.
The question “Why do we tell stories” does not have one simple answer as any individual may have a different response to the question based on their background but, this essay will attempt to form a cohesive answer to the question by responding to three statements, (1)“Some texts seem to be fighting for or against social change or political attitudes or traditions. Choose and discuss the fight for or against this change.”, (2)“Humans are the only animals who seek to understand themselves.The search of this understanding is a theme in many pieces of literature.”, (3) “Lord Acton once said, “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” The use and abuse of power is a recurring theme. Discuss how this theme is developed.” ;
In “The Truth about Stories”, Thomas King, demonstrate connection between the Native storytelling and the authentic world. He examines various themes in the stories such as; oppression, racism, identity and discrimination. He uses the creational stories and implies in to the world today and points out the racism and identity issues the Native people went through and are going through. The surroundings shape individuals’ life and a story plays vital roles. How one tells a story has huge impact on the listeners and readers. King uses sarcastic tone as he tells the current stories of Native people and his experiences. He points out to the events and incidents such as the government apologizing for the colonialism, however, words remains as they are and are not exchanged for actions. King continuously alerts the reader about taking actions towards change as people tend to be ignorant of what is going around them. At the end people give a simple reason that they were not aware of it. Thus, the author constantly reminds the readers that now they are aware of the issue so they do not have any reason to be ignorant.
I have never pondered on such a question of what it means to be a human being. What it means to be a human being is not just having a face, eyes, heart, or being able to drive a car, or to own a house. Being a human being is much more than that, deeper and more passionate. Being a human being is to have the ability to having rational thought and to think deeply. Being a human is finding a meaning or a purpose.
Think of a place everyone has been but no one has stayed. The answer is Neverland. When growing up Neverland is a place for dreamers and for stories to come alive. However, after a certain age everyone stops visiting Neverland, or so they think. That idea results from the notion that stories make human beings human. Humans are complex creatures that are continuously growing and practicing for the future. In The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human, Jonathan Gottschall demonstrates that stories are a part being human and that without stories humans will not be who they are today.
In order to define personhood, one must first define a human. A Human can be thought about in two different senses, a moral human sense and a genetic human sense. In a moral sense, humans can be thought of as a person who is a member of the moral community. In a genetic sense, humans are merely any physical being categorized as a being in the human species. From this one can conclude that a person is a human in the moral sense. Furthermore, characteristics of a person must be defined in order to differentiate moral beings from genetic humans.
Mueller expresses how stories allow children to achieve the impossible, such as flying when they are incapable and discovering the unknown. Stories give a life to the people who are unable to live, and that is one of the reasons why imagination is so essential to our world. The sharing of tales bring genuine joy to people without the need of materialistic items; it gives people the chance to relate to the author on a common ground. The sense of shared joy and mutual connection brings people closer together and expands on relationships. People begin to feel as if they are apart of an imagined community, which is a community in which people perceive themselves to be apart of, through common interests or relations from media or works of literature. Communities such as these allow people to connect with each other, despite never crossing paths. It allows the birth and the strengthening of relationships, for when people begin to converse with others, the first thing they do is find common experiences or interests that they share. In addition, a quote from Mueller, herself, adds to why we tell stories: “Because the story of our life becomes our life. Because each of us tell the same story but tell it differently, and none of us tells it the same way twice.” Tales are devised with the incorporation of the narrator’s imagination; it is a way to
Humans are extremely complex and unique beings. We are animals however we often forget our origins and our place in the natural world and consider ourselves superior to nature. Humans are animals but what does it mean to be human? What are the defining characteristics that separate us from other animals? How are we different? Human origins begin with primates, however through evolution we developed unique characteristics such as larger brain sizes, the capacity for language, emotional complexity and habitual bipedalism which separated us from other animals and allowed us to further advance ourselves and survive in the natural world. Additionally, humans have been able to develop a culture, self-awareness, symbolic behavior, and emotional complexity. Human biological adaptations separated humans from our ancestors and facilitated learned behavior and cultural adaptations which widened that gap and truly made humans unlike any other animal.
One can classify humans by the qualities they possess. To be considered human, one must contain all of the following characteristics: sensitivity, emotional and mental capacity, physical characteristics, communication, desire, and mortality. Humans must possess the ability to be sympathetic towards other individuals which
Fantasy writer Philip Pullman says, “After nourishment, shelter and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world.” Stories have been central to how human history has been shaped and remembered. On a grand scale, stories have been a way to pass down culture and remember history. On a smaller scales, they have been used to spend an entertaining evening or- often in many cultures, put a child to bed. While the power of a stories is one that has gone generally unnoticed, William Cronon urgently calls us to pay attention to stories. As Cronon argues in “A Place for Stories”, the manner in which a story is told influences what futures generations will both learn and recall on their own.
Humans are a unique set of species with many defining characteristics. A majority of people when asks what makes you human, would say being able to breathe, talk, bleed, and reproduce....
Human nature is that quality that sets us apart from other living things; it is the definition of what we are.
What does it mean to be human? Sure, one must have the usual physical features such as fingers, eyes, arms, hands, feet, etc., but what does it really mean? Must the human be able to speak? To take upon the actions of themselves? Whatever it means, it can be interpreted in any way from anyone. The physical attributes of any human can be compared to those of our evolutionary ancestors. However, it is possible to believe that there are many characteristics that make a human, but only six define the true, ideal human.
Since human kind gained the ability of reflection we have questioned our purpose of existence. What makes a human, human? Four philosophers, representing four areas of Philosophy, attempt to answer this question. First is the Dutchman Soren Kierkegaard and his book Sickness unto Death, who is considered the “Father of Existentialism”. Prevalent through all of Kierkegaard’s work was his constant goal to move people closer to God and thus closer to discovering their authentic self. Therefore, our relationship with God is what makes us human. Next is Jeremy Rifkin and his book The Empathic Civilization: The Race to Global Consciousness in A World in Crisis who believes that humanity is defined by our ability to empathize with other humans whether
The fact that we are aware of the world around us and we decide what goes on is a fundamental ability of being human. It is mentioned multiple times. We decide who we are and where we stand in relation to the world around us because of this we have a certain power over nature even if it is not just because of our physical adaptations (Cartmill & Brown, 2012). We are human because we have both genes and traits and this makes us unique. It gives us the ability to see and interpret things differently. We are able to look towards the future and guess what is going to happen and in so doing we are able to plan ahead (Weiss, 2012). We are curious and want to learn, we want to know what is going to happen and we ask questions. We are human because we are aware of ourselves, our emotional state and where we plan to be, what our intentions are. This awareness of self allows us to be much more aware of others, to be empathetic. (Dunbar,