What Am I When All The Humans Sit Down?
- Pathways of Possibility
- 7 days ago
- 7 min read
Updated: 4 days ago
Here Maria Pierleoni tells of how an educational game in her third-grade classroom soon turned into a much deeper exploration and discussion about what it may mean to be—and identify oneself as—a human.
And what is the definition of a human anyway (as opposed to a chipmunk or a pickle)?
What Am I?
The question “What Am I?” seems to follow me everywhere in my search for purpose, the meaning of my own life and what it is that I do with myself while I live and breathe and go about being me. What do I identify with? I could say “Oh yes, I am a woman, I am a mother, a daughter, a wife, a sister, a friend.” And then I could say, “Well, I am a gardener, a cook, a teacher, a writer, a board member, a volunteer, etc.” And then I could even say, “I am kind, caring, curious, helpful, strong, courageous at times, confident at times” and so on.
But do any of these things say “What I am” in the bigger picture of being and living a human life inside a human body?
In a class of third graders, we played an identity game to see where we each had similarities and then, of course, where we had differences. To begin, I asked the class to stand up if anyone was wearing blue. A few stood up. “Stand up if you love to dance.” And a few more stood up. “Stand up if you play soccer.” “Stand up if you are a girl" and then, “a boy”, until everyone was standing. We took note of other similarities while we were standing and the different kinds of differences within the uniqueness of being a human being.
I then said, “Okay, all humans sit down”, expecting all the children to sit down and transition to the next phase of the class. Out of 16 children, four stood standing. I asked why they were still standing. One said they were an alien. One said they were a cat. One said they were a dog. And the fourth one said they didn’t know what they were, but they were pretty sure it was not human.
This led to a brief discussion about the uniqueness humans carry with being gifted with choice, and how that differs from our pets, and so on. This interaction with the children caused me to wonder why they had made those identifications. So I set out to look at the bigger umbrella of what it means to call oneself a human, and what comes with that identification. I needed to know—for myself, and for the children.
Curiously enough, I started with dictionary definitions. The first significant thing I discovered is that the majority of the definitions began with human as an adjective. Only one began with human as a noun. Why was that? Was it difficult to describe? Was a human not a thing? Was it merely a descriptive word for some kind of behavior? Those that chose to give human a noun reference found it necessary to define human by using the word person or being. Why was that? Was there nothing thought about function or form or reason for being human?
Here is a brief listing of the nouns discovered:
Merriam Webster - noun: a bipedal primate mammal (Homo sapiens): a person
Oxford Dictionary - noun: a human being, especially a person as distinguished from an animal or (in science fiction) an alien.
Cambridge Dictionary - noun: a person
Dictionary. Com - noun: a human being
Vocabulary.com - A LISTING WITH NOUN FIRST
Noun: any living or extinct member of the family Hominidae characterized by superior intelligence, articulate speech, and erect carriage
More about Human: Unlike a pickle or a chipmunk, a human is a person. You can identify a human by the two legs it stands on, its upright stature, its high intelligence, and its speech that you'll understand if you're one, too.
Now I understood why the children were confused about what a human is, beyond being a person, whatever that might entail. Even the dictionaries weren’t exactly sure how to describe it or what the function of a human might be. It seems easy enough to define a chipmunk: A burrowing ground squirrel with cheek pouches and light and dark stripes running down the body, found in North America and northern Eurasia. Or a pickle: a small cucumber preserved in vinegar, brine or a similar solution. None of the children opted to identify with the pickle or the chipmunk, thank goodness, but how could anyone identify with what a human is, given these vague definitions?
So I set out to create a definition and a better understanding that might help the children (and me) to identify What Am I?
Starting with what is already known and can be agreed upon by most:
Humans are containers.
Of physical matter such as bones, muscles, joints, organs, blood and brains.
Of references, knowledge, skills, experience, qualities, emotions, memories, psychologies, biases, opinions.
Humans are conductors.
Of electrical exchanges and signals through the nerves, the cells and the heart.
Of physical exchanges and signals with ourselves, each other, nature, the planet.
Humans are generators and creators.
Of qualities such as love, respect, care, honor, faith, belief, hope
Of new music, new art, new architecture, new landscapes, new ideas, new inventions, new options. Even a new human...
Humans are sensory exchangers.
As detection aids to translate electrical signals into physical understanding, humans are given five senses. To observe the rainbow and all the beautiful colors and frequencies of light. Our sense of sight and the intricacies of the eye structure allow us to translate what we see into color and see it in all its magnificence. Who doesn’t love a rainbow?
Humans are given the freedom of choice.
To do as needed or wanted and then choose, again and then again.
To join with this or that or something else.
To become a teacher, an eye doctor, a forest ranger or a parent.
All humans have the option inside “Yes”, “No”, or “more information needed”.
And then what I have come to discover and realize about what a human might be, beyond just “a person”:
Humans were created by God for the purpose of growth and development beyond living, breathing, working and dying.
Why would a human begin life from two microscopic parts (egg and sperm) and grow into a repetitive form, called human, go through walking, talking, learning, puberty, adulthood, menopause, and all the changes that go with it, if it wasn’t about growth and development?
Why would humans have been given the caliber of intelligence far beyond the cat or the worm to create such things as quantum computers, the wristwatch, a self-driving car, a rocket or a cure for cancer?
Why would humans exercise the exploration-need to find out what’s in space or beneath the deepest oceans or between the tiniest particles if not for growth and development?
Each human is a unique experiment, gifted with choice to form oneself while they live.
We are each a unique combination of pieces and parts, gifts, strengths, skills and abilities, like no other human on the planet.
Even twins are different. Different fingerprints, different DNA, different astrological influences, different personalities, different preferences.
We are simply different one from the other, on purpose, to give response from our own location in self, level of development thus far and life experiences that make us who we are, so that God has a myriad of responses from down here, to form God’s greater picture of what a human is and can do, up there.
Humans are gifted with a soul and a spirit, electrical in nature, in support of the human journey to manage, to guide, to assist the activation of what it means to be a human.
When a human is awake, aware, alert, active and alive in their life, they can choose to have an exchange possibility with many things beyond just the physical.
Perhaps an upgraded dictionary definition of Human, worthy of more than a word or two or even a line or two, could be something like this:
Human – noun:
A responder to the creational design signal given at conception and appearing at birth
A container for living physical parts, such as organs and operating systems, which all have their own evolutionary journey
A holder in trust of a spirit and a soul, electrical in nature, designed to assist the journey
A processor of electrical signals, some automatic, like the heart signal; some by choice in generation, like the signal of love or passion or care
A participant in an individual creational and evolutionary story, active or inactive
A participant in a collective creational and evolutionary story, active or inactive
A living, breathing organic entity with choice
When I brought this definition of Human back to the third-graders and read it aloud, these were their reflections, after a bit of silence and soaking:
That’s way more than just a person or a being, like the dictionary said.
Can I do all that already right now?
It sounds like a job.
No one told me I could choose things like that.
My parents need to know all this.
Now that I, and hopefully the children, have a better sense of what we are as humans, the next question might be: “Who Am I?"
If you enjoyed this article, you may also want to read other posts from Maria, including "A Magnificent Human" and "Who is That in My Mirror?".
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