We are born in pain, naked and defenceless, we develop over many years, we learn speech and how to survive, we bring love and other emotions with us, we sense the emotions of others, we try to understand life, we wonder if we have a destiny, we reach out to create reason and have faith in a creator, we connect with people, we bond with a member of the opposite sex, we create another human life, gradually we age and eventually we die.

Each of us is different. We learn what we choose to learn, we are born with different skills. We learn what we are capable of and we struggle against our own limitations.Our appearances are different, we have different qualities of health, sense, insight and emotions, and different destinies to pleasant and tragic experiences. We strive to deal with them in different ways.

Each of us is the same. We are all born physically similar, with the body parts in the same places, with a similar group of senses and emotions, with similar needs and developments, with similar choices and reproductive systems and tribal families.

What does it mean to be human? People have been asking for centuries and speculating for centuries. We are born with a vital instinct for growth and development and we are taught by our tribal families ways to live. In former decades parent, shaman, priest, teacher, storyteller, family member, stranger, friend and life experience itself provided all our information.

Increasingly information has become separated from these community members and become an entity in it’s own right within a world wide web of tribal relations. On being human is my small contribution to it’s library.

JA Francis. 28th May 2007