What Makes You Human?
You tell me.
I guess, it’s not “us”; it’s YOU.
The question has been bothering me for several years
In the last millennia, there have been sooo many things circulating about “What makes you human?” Even if the question had an answer, what difference could that make?
Indeed, how are you better than an animal?
Animals are for mere survival.
Are you?
To what end?
People who are afraid for their lives are easy to intimidate, and the media manipulation started as early as in the 1950s. In fact, people who are afraid die a thousand deaths before passing away…
So, who are you?
Are you afraid to die?
Of course, most people don’t exactly embrace death as the prairie Indians in the second half of the 19th century, when they used to shout, “This is a good day to die!”
Is it possible that they were superior to most of today’s people who are still impertinent enough to call themselves human?
What does it all boil down to?
Are people humans, if they have something greater to live for than for their own survival above the animal world?
Ask a dog who is willing to die for its owner (aka. “pack leader”). The answer is that they would pass for humans.
Nope, your humanity lies in a single asset: your ability to choose, when animals have no choice:
https://rayhorvaththesource.substack.com/p/i-have-solved-the-question-of-free
Yes, from a cognitive scientist’s point of view, I have solved the problem of free will. It is YOU ONLY who can decide what kind of a world you are willing to live in. NOBODY ELSE HAS EVER DONE THIS BEFORE, but this is to YOUR benefit!
Ultimately, it will probably boil down to one thing, but who am I to say?
It must be the fact that we are stupid.
Kazantzakis published a really thin volume called Ascesis: The Saviors of God. The subtitle is Spiritual Exercises. The book contains something like commandments, or simply rules that uncover Kazantzakis’ philosophical worldview.
We come from a dark abyss, we end in a dark abyss, and we call the luminous interval life. As soon as we are born the return begins, at once the setting forth and the coming back; we die in every moment. Because of this many have cried out: The goal of life is death! But as soon as we are born we begin the struggle to create, to compose, to turn matter into life; we are born in every moment. Because of this many have cried out: The goal of ephemeral life is immortality! In the temporary living organism these two streams collide: (a) the ascent toward composition, toward life, toward immortality; (b) the descent toward decomposition, toward matter, toward death.
Three commandements
1. To see and accept the boundaries of the human mind without vain rebellion, and in these severe limitations to work ceaselessly without protest – this is where man’s first duty lies… I recognize these limitations, I accept them with resignation, bravery, and love, and I struggle at ease in their closure, as though I were free… This is how, with clarity and austerity, you may determine the omnipotence of the mind amid appearances and the incapacity of the mind beyond appearances – before you set out for salvation. You may not otherwise be saved.
2. The mind is patient and adjusts itself, it likes to play; but the heart grows savage and will not condescend to play; it stifles and rushes to tear apart the nets of necessity…. “Heart, naive heart, become serene, and surrender!”…Yes, the purpose of Earth is not life, it is not man. Earth has existed without these, and it will live on without them. They are but the ephemeral sparks of its violent whirling.
3. The heart cannot adjust itself. Hands beat on the wall outside its dungeon, it listens to erotic cries that fill the air. Then, swollen with hope, the heart responds by rattling its chains; for a brief moment it believes that its chains have turned to wings. But swiftly the heart falls wounded again, it loses all hope, and is gripped once more by the Great Fear. The moment is ripe: leave the heart and the mind behind you, go forward, take the third step. Free yourself from the simple complacency of the mind that thinks to put all things in order and hopes to subdue phenomena. Free yourself from the terror of the heart that seeks and hopes to find the essence of things. Conquer the last, the greatest temptation of all: Hope. This is the third duty….I know now: I do not hope for anything. I do not fear anything, I have freed myself from both the mind and the heart, I have mounted much higher, I am free. This is what I want. I want nothing more. I have been seeking freedom.
On his grave "I hope for nothing. I fear nothing. I am free.”