This is the definition of humantity

What does it mean to be human? Human life can be interpreted and defined in numerous ways. It is simply a matter of opinion.
As I was creating my “definition of humanity” montage I decided to use more earthy colors to represent the connection between human life and nature. A large part of what it means to be human is to have the ingenuity to take what resources the earth supplies and to use them for survival. The thought process that goes into the way in which we create things from and destroy things in our natural environment is a piece of human identity.
Furthermore, all humans are driven forward by DESIRE and are held back by the FEAR that we may never be good enough, that we will never have worth, that we will never get what we DESIRE in life. A wonderful part of being human is that we have physical, emotional, psychological, and sexual DESIREs yet unfortunately with being human comes that hindering FEAR that keeps us from acquiring what we want most in life.
As we go through life, chasing our dreams and being blockaded by uncertainty we learn things about ourselves that change the courses that we are on and the things that we pursue. With each tweak to our goals and lifestyles we add another layer to our life, whether it’s a new lesson learned, a new relationship started, the loss of a loved one, or a career change. The four layers in the center represent these changes, because although we have added or adjusted things to our life it is not replacing what we experienced in the past it is simply adding to it. To be human means to be able to adapt to these changes and accept the past for what it is.
These are the things that make up the human existence and define who we are.

Struggle

In the journey of life, there are "problems" we find in society. Each one of these is personal and relative to each person. For example, people who are poor, struggle to eat and find places to live, while people who are rich may struggle to find meaning in anything because it can always be bought. The world is chaotic and problematic and as humans we will always find something that we are unsatisfied with, that is inevitable. The question is how we deal with our problems. The two paths we are given are capitulation or struggle. We can exist in a state of numbness (symbolized by the mood elevating pills) or just plain give up (the rope). If we choose a different path other than giving up, we can struggle. To be human is to deal with our surroundings and come to terms with the things we despise or torture us. The feat is, in my opinion, reached through knowledge and education (the lightbulb "brain" and books holding up the "rock" of life).

What it Means to be Human

Being human is living under a solid bell jar, but being able to move around freely within it. It is knowing how to play by the rules, yet it being okay to break it. Being human is being like one of the majority, but the one and only of the majority. It is when emotions are never wrong, but when certain emotions are just not quite right. It is the beautiful irony in being human. It is when the most complex creation of mind and body cannot configure every question. More often than not, it is natural to absorb the answers provided inside the bell jar. But being human is having the ability to rightfully challenge or sincerely adopt the answers as ones own.

The Humanity of Humans

This panel represents, symbolically, the common motifs that I recognize in society. Life's seeming randomness, yet seeming purposefulness was a big inspiration for my creation. Furthermore, the "interconectedness" of life, humanity's natural organization, evolution, and faith are all represented within my patch. I approached "What does it mean to be human?" from a holistic, "socionatural" point of view, that is, what humanity has come to be over the eons, what has characteristically represented human existence, and what sets us apart from everyone else.
My effort was to break conventional artistic valus with this panel, yet also attribute to those new conventions specific symbolic importance. I tried to excercise humanity's greatest and most exclusive quality, creativity, in, essentially, describing the human condition. Through the dissonant, yet visually appealing background I captured life's "unity through disunity," or how humankind seems disjointed, sparse; how one's life seems random and unconnected to anyone else's, yet somehow, through some force, everything comes together in the end. It is this mystical feeling that I tried to capture, and in doing so, I violate one of Art Theory's traditional treatises: the compliment of a dark background to a bright, colorful, foreground, to which I did the exact opposite. Furthermore, the pictures themselves symbolize what I view as exclusive to the human experience, and how humanity is able to rival nature and her creative forces in our ability to create new life rivaling, and even surpassing the complexity of other animals. The ability to create artificial landscapes; skyscrapers that rival nature's mountains. And the social interactions that are similiar in essence to all other animals, but to us it is fundamentally different in that it forms a cornerstone of our human experience.

One of the meanings to what it means to be human is to find infinite beauty in the smallest things. As humans we tend to have one ideal picture of what beauty is. We listen to society's opinions and we base off our behavior and our decisions according to what everyone else would deem an "ideal thought" of a certain stereotype. Of course there are those of us who find beauty in not the material things that were made by the human hand and were created for our self needed purpose but the natural things such as nature which was not made by man and something we cannot explain all the time. Even so, something as small as a growing tree plant or a butterfly is what inspired people to do great things and to go beyond our potential. Where did we get the idea to fly if it was not for someone who not only saw the flight of a bird but found infinite beauty and inspiration in that flight of that bird? Where did we get the idea to paint a picture or create music if it was not for that one person who not only saw the colors and heard a rhythm in nature but found infinite beauty in it as well? It starts out like that at first and that is one of the many beauties that humans have. Humans have the ability to see something so simple as a seed or a small plant find and find potential in it and create something out of it and it is not like someone has to find beauty in everything he or she sees. The beauty of free will gives humans a chance to pick what he or she gets drawn to. That is why some people are more drawn to music and art and others are more drawn to dancing and sports. They find beauty in these certain things and potential and from there they let their passion grow so that they consume within this thing and make this small thing they see so much beauty in become something much bigger. Like Einstein's interest for "small atoms" lead him to create something so powerful as the atomic bomb and as authors' love for writing leads them to create classic books, humans have the ability, that no other creature has, to get something and create something out of it and not only create something out of it and this is where the infinite part comes in. When a human starts off with something small and creates something bigger out of it, it can inspire the person themself or even other people to create something off of that or create something else because they were inspired off that one thing. It creates a chain reaction for if the new creation made from the previous creation inspires others, they themselves will possibly create something based off of that creation and so on. It continues on forever because people will constantly change and try to improve the creations and continue on and it all started off from something so basic and small. Like a small seed which grew into a beautiful flower which inspired someone to paint it and someone wrote a book dedicated to the painting which was read by someone else to go travel the world and see the place depicted in that book, the human ability to see infinite beauty in the smallest things proves to be something much more grand than alot of people can perceive.

What it Means to Be Human

To me what it mean to be human is finding your niche or place in life. The fish in the water presents the question, "Are you a big fish in a small pond or a small fish in big pond?" Finding out what you are good at and trying out new things and the perception in which go about doing this all refelect what it means to be human. The sun represents the light that you are to the world. A divine being who illuminates those around them and can serve as a role model to whoever looks up to them. Marianne Williamson's quote best explains the use of the sun (link http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Marianne_Williamson). The clouds represent the vast interpretations we have of the world. When we look up at a cloud we ask, "What do you see" and are different opinions shape what we are and the individuality that makes us human.

What it means to be human is quite a difficult thing to attempt to capture on 6" by 6" square panel. My square has a flower with many layers of different colors which represent underlying emotions and feelings which often play a role in complicating human feeling. There is a light bulb which represents thought. Thought is imperative to being human because it is what separates us from animals and insects. The money on the upper left hand side of the panel represents greed and value. Human beings often evaluate the value of people, objects, and feelings. The post card on the top center represents the fact that humans are very social for the most part and are in constant contact with one another. The train ticket represents the fact that human beings tend to be mobile and wonder often, if not in the physical sense then at least in thought. The corset in the bottom left corner represents social constraint and its effects on human morals, actions, and opinion. The bottom right corner's checkered design represents how humans fall into patterns of habit which may be good or bad. The alcoholic beverage label in the upper right hand corner represents human addiction which coincides with the idea of habitual action.