I know this is cliche to say, but humans in the 21st century are deeply alienated from nature. I left my apartment today to go for a walk, and right as I left it started raining. It wasn't a heavy rain, but the high wind exaggerated the rain's strength. I was maybe a hundred feet from the apartment when I considered turning back as I realized the rain was about to ramp up. Instead, I decided to push forward; a little rain can't hurt me. That moment's hesitation caused me to think: how many people living in this day and age would make the choice to turn back? If you could put every person on Earth in the scenario I was in, I'd wager at least half would decide not to continue the walk. Now, to be fair, it's just a walk. Why walk in the rain when you can just wait until the rain passes? It's just a walk; a little exercise isn't immediately important. But then again, it's just some rain. So many people would rush to shelter than braving a little cold and wet weather. Our ancestors would laugh at how wimpy we are. Think about what it was like for them. I'm writing this at about nine p.m. The wind outside is gusting hard. I'm here, laying down on a couch, in a insulated house, with lights that come on and off with the flick of a finger. My ancestors would be huddled in a tent or a cave. They'd have to endure the dark and cold all night. And the next night. And the night after that. For them, there are no walls. There are no carpets, or beds, or tables, or even chairs. We all know what it's like to sit and lay on the ground outside. Imagine that is pretty much, aside from maybe sitting on a log or a big stone, all you can ever do. These are obvious facts but they're nonetheless profound if you're able to imagine at least on some level what it's truly like to live so utterly dependent on nature. It's tough. Every aspect of your life is affected. I imagine most of your life is spent dealing with and worrying about the weather. Even the mere regular shift from day to night is a difficult, important occurrence. You know, now that I think about it, our ancestors probably wouldn't be so quick to laugh at our aversion to rain. I mean, they'd still think we are wimps. But they'd also understand that for them even minor rain is a fairly big deal. What if they're caught out hunting and they're hit with a sudden downpour? They can't run back to a house or car which is completely cut off from the rain and wind. If they're lucky they'd find a big tree to sit under. But a tree doesn't really shield you from the wind. And even a big tree doesn't always fully shield you from rain either. If their clothes got wet while trying to find shelter, they'd have to sit on the cold, wet ground in their cold, wet clothes, sometimes for hours until the rain passed. Rain is no joke for them. For all the modern struggles we have living in the era we do, at least we don't have these kinds of old struggles. Well, most of us don't. Keep in mind, homeless people still have to deal with, to some extent, these hardships. I wasn't really intending to write about homelessness when I started this, but it's something that inevitably came to mind.

The diverting attribute of defining a human, is that there are different answers from each person depending on views, beliefs and culture. One would think because each human has most or all of the intangible aspects that we would have all the same views, beliefs and cultures when this is not always the case. Cultures are different since we have our own structure of beliefs that only we know, therefore our ideology is different because it underlies the customs, practices and habits common to a culture that follows their own set of rules. What best describes a human being is the intangible rather than the tangible due to the fact our close relatives the Family Hominidae possess the main physical qualities. But what really separates us from them? Humans as a whole in society, and how they interact with one another, provide an overall picture of how humans in society are different than the Family Hominidae. One human interrelating with other humans creates what society depends and thrives on, the birth of a community. The root of society is education; where the rules of the world are learned, explored and improved upon. Education facilitates students no matter the profession they choose; be it doctor, teacher, factory worker or sanitary engineer. They are all professions that perform a necessary and important service or produce a needed product. Therefore, an aspect of being human is helping others and oneself by learning and going into their chosen vocation. Humans also have epiphanies to improve, such as the cure for death is life; living a fulfilled life in order to change one's own life or other people's lives for the better (Brown). While Family Hominidae teaches by example and sound, they greatly lack in text and image aspect of teaching. Plus, they only learn to survive. The Family Hominidae's epiphanies only consist of realizing the need to move because of water or food depletion or the presence of increased predators in their habitats. This survival action is based on the animal's instinct rather than human reasoning of analysing the situation and the deduction of a rational solution. As a result of our brain capacity, we as humans have to do much more than survive, and to keep us living to the next day. Therefore, we need meaning and purpose in our lives. The desire and want for meaning in our lives invokes the intangible features of being a human because we have a need to analyse and evaluate every situation or option. We are able to reason and rationalize because we investigate and assess, then comprehend that both options have equal pros and cons. Take for example technology, it has great aspects but also has its downfalls (Ong). In order to assess, we have to have the ability to critically think and reflect about the consequences and how it will affect others, us, and society. To question our meaning we must question our habits that affect our way of life. What Mouse articulates in The Matrix is true, because “to deny our impulses is to deny what defines us as human”, which means the female in the short story, Hills like White Elephants, will either bring up the subject of children again or leave the situation all together. In a loving relationship, the couple will support each and thoroughly discuss an issue like having children because humans need to analyse and evaluate before coming to a mutually satisfying conclusion. As a result of wanting to improve one's situation or society, humans criticize others and their environment as Shelby Lee Adams discovered quickly when creating his video and photography documentation on the people of Appalachia. Consequently, the criticism causes some humans to adapt to their surroundings even more, trying to understand the new society's customs (Divakaruni). The need and requirement to adapt is rooted from the desire to learn because humans “look for a challenge” (Petit). The desire to adapt to an ever changing world also is the foundation for humans to strive to make their lives easier which results in creating innovative technologies. When we can better examine what intangible aspects affect us more prominently than other characteristics, we will realize what defines us as an individual human being. This act will ultimately affect individuals, and as a society to mature in a certain direction depending on the variations of the levels of the intangibles. The interlinking of the intangibles assembled from the texts is what defines humans is the desire to change ourselves or society for the greater good, no matter what that ‘good' is perceived to be in that certain culture. What sets humans apart from animals does not truly define us, “but what is uniquely self-organizing in us and which unifies the whole human being” (Wiles). The interesting aspect about the question as to what defines us is that it is always changing as we adapt and revolutionize society.