Being human means being able to accomplish things that not every other species necessarily is able to. Humans experience life in a way that is not easily comparable to others and has no way of being compared to others because humans cannot fathom the life of an ant or a groundhog, no more than an ant or a groundhog can communicate with humans to let us know that our lives can be compared. Being human means being what we are while everything else in the world is what it is. The way we interact with the lifeforms around us and the nature that surrounds is an imperative part of being human.
Another part of being human is expressing emotion. We express emotion through facials and gestures and acting. We are able to not only tell others how we're feeling but also show and feel it. Humans have the capacity to feel our own and others emotions while still staying stable. We are able to fake emotions and let them go completely. We can feel happiness, disappointment, fear, frustration, anxiety, excitement, depression, sadness, anger, love, and a multitude of others almost as inherently as we are able to breathe. That's not to say that animals cannot feel those emotions as well, humans are just able to express them in ways that animals cannot. Humans can feel and feel again and feel differently tomorrow and feel differently the next day. Our emotions are tied to our situations which means that any moment of any given day could be different than the next. No one can be certain as to whether you will be upset five minutes from now or beaming with joy, but it doesn't matter because we're allowed to do that. As humans, we are allowed to feel an entire range of emotions in a few minutes and have everything stay normal, because we are stable enough to continue our lives. Animals may be able to feel emotions as well, but absolutely not in the depth that humans can, and to be honest, I'm not sure if they would want to be able to. Being human, to me, is knowing that we are emotionally capable of incredible feats and using that knowledge to better humanity.
I liked that you made the comparison betweent the emotions and lives of humans and that of a groundhog and an ant. I believe you are entirely right in saying that humans have the ability to feel our own emotions as well as those of others around us. However, our ability to remain stable while feeling and understanding all these emotions is questionable. Humans often take in too many emotions at once and that tends to cause them to overload and shut down. We then function, but not in anyway at our best, much like a computer running too many programs which slow its process. For us humans however, overload is not the end we process these emotions, perhapse slowly at first, and learn from the experience. With every overload we become stronger and less likely to have a total mental break down. In a way that is one of our own unique abilities as well, we can overload and reboot.
ReplyDeleteI agree, being human varies from person to person. And a big part of being human is experiencing life around us. Like you said we have a massive range and variety of emotions, as well as facial expressions too. But I do not think we can tributlize our brains like computers though. Yeah people can get over worked, but I believe that is just part of being human as well.
ReplyDeleteI like how you compared animals to human beings. I agree with you that while animals do feel some sort of emotion, humans feel it in a much more complex way. As you said, we are capable of faking any emotion we want, while animals are not. I agree with you that animals probably wouldn't want to feel emotions on the level that we do.
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