What Does It Mean to be Human/Final Reflection

What does it mean to be Human? Does this pertain to Humanity or the biological definition of a homosapien? Am I more human than a serial killer or less human than the monkeys sent into space? In the beginning of last semester each day was a heated debate, what was human? What was the true definition? The answer? There is none.

Ishmael, from Quinn's Ishmael, the text I chose, I find more human than the derelict high schools I call my peers.  Ishmael points to the humans as the problem for all of the world's crises. I look around me as children are starving and point to my friends who unknowingly deplete all of the world's resources. 

What does it mean to be human? Does it mean we talk with eloquence and speed? I see Loralai and Rory Gilmore rattle off words on Gilmore Girls and I am dumbfounded, yet don't the crickets chirp with equal speed? And who knows what they are saying, some cricket out there might be the next shakespeare. Or rather are we human because we have empathy? Because in my personal experience, animals frequently have more empathy than the humans I know and love. I look into the big brown eyes of my loving Irish Setter and see more love, kindness and humanity than middle school girls showed me in seventh grade. I think of my best friend, unable to get married in most parts of the world due to his sexuality and how homophobic only exists in mankind, not the animal kingdom. 

I think back to the beginning of the semester, watching the video of the feral girl, "Genie" and is she human? Yes, biologically, but is she? Is she died and in hundreds of years humans discovered her body she would appear just as human as I am, but are we one in the same? I would say not. Biology only goes to an extent. There is more to being human than DNA, we have heart and passion. We strive to make others happy and truly do what we believe should be done. Clearly, this is not true for all humans. But I do not think human DNA or our civilized culture adorned in concrete and steal make us human. I think our humanity makes us human. Our inability to be satisfied, to always try and improve, to innovate and along the way love, care and make connections and communities.  

This project, similarly to ours last year in New Global Voices, was an entire class-wide project. We split up into teams and did most of the work in our teams but ran big ideas past each other in the full group setting. On the first day I helped contribute ideas and helped to shape the ideas into the final product. I annotated my individual article as well as all of the group articles for team Ishmael. Within the entire group element, each individual family had to come up with questions and answer other team's questions. I came up with one of the two questions for team Ishmael as well as answered other team's questions and helped discuss answers that make it into the final edit of the script. I think our final product is going to be different--- but interesting. I like the idea and the concept we came up with, I feel like it can truly showcase all of the books we read but still present it in a creative manner, which is all we really wanted. I do however wish the instructions for the project were a little clearer, and maybe what as individuals we could have done more, I found myself redoing or doing the same work others had already done and wished that maybe that was more clear (for example both Cynthia and I read all of our groups group annotations... Was that entirely necessary? Probably not but I felt that I should contribute more, so I did.) I did however like how different this project is. Normal presentations get old, and I like that I am ending my last English class of high school in a new and interesting way, not just a lame skit or powerpoint. 

You tube is frequently sited as both a sight full of love and hate, in Mackelmore's hit "Save Love" last year, he says "have you heard the youtube comments lately" referring to the harmful and bully-like comments which frequently adorn youtube. When I typed "Chris McCandless" into YouTube's search bar, a large variety of videos come up. The first video to catch my eye was a Tribute to 20 years of Chris McCandless' life. This included a slide show of many of the sites mentioned in Into The Wild. Another tribute to Chris' life acknowledges his second and "true" identity---Alexander Supertramp. Again, showing photos of some of the sites mentioned in Into The Wild, allowing for a more holistic sense of his travels and his life. These tributes glorify both his life and his death. They show photos of his adventures and although the average tribute does not focus on death, neither even touches upon his death, even though not only was it was so closely related to his vagabond lifestyle but actually the reason for his death. 

The third video was vastly different than the first two. Not a tribute, but an interview Ned Rozell interviewed Walt McCandless, Chris' father as he visits the bus where Chris spent his last days. As sad as this video was, it felt less like an ode to his life and more factual, even though this was the one video delivered by someone directly involved with Chris McCandless, the video felt as though it lacked empathy, something I never expected. He was just so detached from the interview. Granted, the interview was done in 2011, years after Chris' death, but his father was at the site of his death, I would have expected more emotion. This could be do to the bad relationship the two had while Chris was alive, as noted in Into The Wild, but even so, this caught me the most off guard. 

The final video I watched was the trailer to the movie into the wild. Since never seeing the movie myself, I thought this would not only be an interesting contrast to the book but a contrast to the rest of the videos I watched prior. Just by the flashes in the beginning of the trailer, it looks like some of the scenes are surprisingly accurate. However, this movie seems to romanticize (like many do) Chris McCandless' journey, as though this is something wondering and anyone can "take a journey, into the beauty, into the danger, into the wild", as the trailer so eloquently puts it. This is entirely inaccurate. Although it is a lovely idea, going into alaska, without sufficient supply in the dead of winter, is just stupid. About two years ago, my family went on the trip to Alaska and we did go to Denali. As you climb those mountains the temperate drops rapidly. I visited in the Middle of August and snow covered glacier ice was still all around me. But in the winter? There is no way the outcome would have been positive. 

Triptych

As beautiful as nature can be, inside is more comfortable. And for the procrastinating upper schoolers, sitting in the library is preferable to outside even though the snow has finally melted. 

As old as we get, many of us continue with our childhood tendencies. Anna Matenaer still likes to climb trees in her free time, even if an eighteen year old climbing is frowned upon...

My backyard is home to many creatures. Even though we have lived in my house for fifteen years, the animals still claim the space as theirs. Once the snow melts they return and eat my grandmas bird seeds and strut through the woods.