Oh the Humanities, Part 2

Where were we?  Ah yes, I was about to wet my pants…

I remember it like it was yesterday.  It was a warm, sunny spring morning in East Tennessee when redbuds, cherry blossom and pear trees burst forth in full bloom in defiance of their winter sojourn.  The day had all the makings of a Shelley poem, I think I even saw a cloud in the shape of Ozymandias.  My romantic interlude ended upon entering Hyder Auditorium.   175 of my classmates and I opened our blue books and gasped…

It was the final exam of our sophomore year of Humanities.  We explored the New World, Enlightened the West and brought the world into modernity.  There was only one thing left to do, pass the final exam.  I opened the exam and looked at the first essay question, it was 50% of the entire final.  The question, “What does it mean to be human”?

2,000 years and two years of study brought us to this one simple question.  Are you serious?  Suddenly, I was having a panic attack, I had to excuse myself.  The only place I could go was to the restroom. 

The question seemed simple and yet I had no idea how to answer it.  Being human, and the answer to what it means to be human, may be the second most important question anyone of us can ever ask.  It seems paramount that we actually have a viable answer for it.  So, what I’d like to do is to answer this question correctly this time.  Maybe once we’re done, I can turn this in and increase my Humanities grade. 

What Does it Mean to be Human?