When and how did you learn that you are human?

Answer 1

I was told that I was human from a very young age. However, I never believed it.

If you put a strange or foreign chicken into a large flock all the other chickens in the flock will peck her to death. They instantly realize she is different and destroy her. If I were human why was I so different, so unacceptable to all the humans around me? How did they naturally realize I was strange and decide to hurt me even if I kept silent?

Logically, I knew I must be human since at least my teen years because there was nothing else I could actually be. I still felt I couldn't be fully human, something was either present that was different and frightening or something was lacking that was vital to interpersonal relations. A high school teacher provided a clue.

I was sitting in an out of the way corner of the school building after hours, crying quietly. A teacher approached me and asked what was wrong. I told him I was strange or deformed or subhuman because everyone reacted to me with hatred. I expected a stupid, comforting response but got a surprisingly deep one that I didn't understand at the time. He said, "People will always be afraid of you. Some people are just different because they see the world differently, more brightly and more darkly than the rest of us. You can let people's ignorance destroy you or you can use your special sight to change the world." At the time, it was a sort of nonsense answer. It helped, though. At least someone didn't think I was weird.

I studied the humans around me and learned to mimic their behaviors almost perfectly. Eventually, around age 21, I had mastered my disguise. However, if I ever felt comfortable enough to "be myself" with someone and let the facade slip they ceased to relate and reacted with anger or hatred.

When I was 25 I fell in love with my Husband. We didn't do things the normal way, the accepted way but it was the right way for us. He told me he loves me because I accept him as he is. I don't just accept him as he is, I love him as he is. Anyone outside us looking in would think we are strange and they are probably right. We both see things differently, both more brightly lit and more darkly shadowed.

Humans are social creatures; you can't quite be or feel human if you are truly alone. When I found my Husband, I found myself as well.

Answer 2

Do you have to learn this?
This is something you know by nature.
At some point when you are 6 or 7 you start to learn the phrase of being "human".

Answer 3

Well, first you have to know what a human is, so you have to have had mastered your language, and then you can start making judgements about classes and whatnot and realize that you're an instance of the class human and then you start to ponder about things and eventually end up asking a question you already have the answer to on Yahoo! Answers.

Answer 4

Very early stages, even before it occurred that adults too were human like me ! The self-awareness , the ability to poke into the lives of other living beings, the animate ones, as a child, when none of them ever retaliated !

Answer 5

There's a psychological theorist called Maslow. He has a series of 'steps' that humans go through as they develop psychologically. When (in the 70's) he first coined his hierarchy, or pyramid, he had five steps. In the 80's, that went up to seven. Recently, another was added. According to Maslow's Pyramid, we attain self-actualisation (I am a human being) as the penulitmate step in our psychological development. So the answer to your question is, when you've progressed through the preceeding six steps.

Answer 6

God created the heavens and the Earth and the ocean and the sky. The birds,tress, and plant. Then he thought the world needed rulers to take use of the things he created so he made umans with flesh and bones. He created the man first and to create the girl he took a rib out of the man and turned it into a women. thats why they call us a women with the word men in it. But humans have flesh and skin so they have no scaly skin or other crap.

Answer 7

What's a human? Am I one?

Answer 8

I was barely able to tie my shoes when a penguin clad in black habit and white linen, heavily starched, cracked me across my hand and told me to act like the human being God made me to be.... Fearing for my life I took her word for it..

Answer 9

And what is it that makes you think that I am human?

Someone told me that you are what you eat... so I must be human.

More ketchup. Less soy sauce.

Answer 10

I read it in a book when i was 3.