by Frenchi Baluyot
What does it mean to be human? What really struck me the most in philosophy was this question because it really makes you think, what does it really mean to be human? Is being human living a life of imperfection in the sense that we use our humanity as an excuse to do wrong and to make mistakes? “Tao lang ako” I often hear this phrase from people and sometimes even myself as we see our humanity in the negative light instead of positive. So I guess what it means to be human is to be more than human. To be human is to go beyond our concepts of what humanity truly is. It is to be infinite.
If to be human is to be infinite, alongside with this is our infinite responsibility as human beings. To be human is “to be there” for Others as we have to recognize that we are related beings, interconnected, and social. We cannot simply live life maintaining only ourselves because to do this is to be ignorant of the Other even if this reality is already clearly in front of us. Being social beings, how can we not respond to a reality calling us to act and move? When we recognize the Other as face, we are pushed by something within us, an infinite which calls us to move out of ourselves and experience the world with others.
Ultimately, what it means to be human is to recognize that we are related beings responsible for each other in this world as after all “No man is an island entire of itself, every man is a piece of a continent, part of the main.” This quote points out to us that we are part of a larger scheme and larger order of things and with this “no man is an island” we need to move out of ourselves and experience being part of this whole.
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