- Dalai Lama
What does it mean to be human? If you have limbs and extremities, muscles and bones, blood and organs, are you not human? 99% of the human body is made up of just these basic elements; oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium, and phosphorus. But what is the other 1%, I wonder. What is the missing link that distinguishes us as human beings?
The most significant factor that separates man from beast is our superior ability to think. In the wild, there are no laws, morals or beliefs. Whatever actions made are influenced by the organisms' instinct to survive, where killing can be justified by their will to live. No one is innocent and yet everyone is. Why? Because they don't know better. As humans, we have learned not to coexist in an ecosystem, but as a society. As one civilization succeeds to the next, the concept of humanity often tends to change as human beings become more sophisticated. Today, we've come along way in understanding the principles of right and wrong. However, knowing is only half the battle. The next step is choosing whether or not to do the right thing or whatever considered to be socially decent. This is what ultimately defines your morality, and without morality, humankind would surely slip back into the barbaric age from when we first arrived on this earth. Although nowadays we would use missiles and warheads as opposed to spears and arrows, the intention of a weapon, no matter how advanced or primitive, has never changed.
