The Answer is 42

The experience of being human is very vague and hard to define. That is why any explanation must start with the very basic of how humans think. In his book, Alphabet of the Goddess, Leonard Shlain explains the different responsibilities and purpose of each hemisphere of the brain. "The right sphere integrates feelings, recognizes images, and appreciates music... synthesizing multiple converging determinants so... the mind can rasp the sense's inputs all at once." The right hemephere is the oldest and first developed. It interprets gesture, expression, intonation, and intuition. It is emotional and has no words. it is undefinable directly so the left hemisphere, in charge of logic , order, and language, must try to convert emotion into words through metaphor. This ability to connect the unconnected on a very basic level is human. From these connections come integrated things like art, music, and language. It is this ability of metaphor that allows cultures to have a voice and create.  God, a brief History says that art is a type of language, the expression of emotion  and the intangible to into other visible left brain-ish type of physical expression. Raven Armstrong, in a Short History of Myth, says myth lets us cope with anxiety, deal with trauma and explain those inexplicable emotions much like art or language. The connection humans make through metaphor is a crucial and basic component to the human experience.

Another basic component to being human is humanities' relationship to nature or more exactly degree of cultural estrangement from the natural world. The National Geographic's Australian Aborigines film shows that unlike western society, they do not feel dominant over nature. Their deities come from nature and their ancestors inhabit the very earth we walk upon. The Human- Nature Relation, however quite clearly puts western views that nature is an alien place of temptation that must be dominated. Genesis 2 even states that Adam named nature, and therefore it belongs to him. The conquering or integrating of nature in society greatly reflects human culture. How Art Made the World talks of different times view of owning, abusing, and controlling nature in the west and demonstrates that our environment has always housed the human experience and therefore has a major role in shaping it.

This next component is a combination of  human emotion and cultural standard, love and beauty. Love,has captivated humanity since the beginning. Plato's symposium claims that love is logical and the desire for the good and a force between god and man. Love desires wisdom, order and the true world of ideals. Love is also a type of immortality. To Ficino, Love comes from god and creates order out of chaos. whatever it is, humanity obsesses over this feeling we call love and a part of the human experience is trying to find and define it. Beauty,  is a different matter, it is both cultural and transcendent of culture. Kant calls it an adjective tat an object possesses, Oscar Wilde sees the destruction false over and outer beauty cause , and Nietzsche says its pleasure.  Humans want to experience the awe that comes from natural beauty and want to feel an overpowering love. The search for both, whether we realize it or not also guides and determines our lives.

Every culture has their own set of Laws and own standard or ethics. It is this universality that renders law and ethics vital to the definition of the human experience. The connection of law and ethics to a deity is also note worthy. Whether it be the Ten Commandments of Judaism or the Buddhist Precepts the rules against killing and harming others is a constant. the question of "do we have a moral obligation to others?" plague every society and at some level every individual. Ayn Rand says we have an obligation to help ourselves first, Mills says that we must think of everyone else. This conflict of morality guides the way humans live life and are also a personal combination of culture, tradition, faith, and personal beliefs. But as ethics and laws guide our life, they are very important.

Finally, the meaning of human experience. the question am ruminating on right now. Myth tells of the hero's journey and the interview The Hero's Journey explains that this mythological plot of descending into the unknown and emerging from the abyss changed pertains to every individual not just Luke Skywalker or Odysseus. This hero's journey is a universal for every human and every person has there own. The myths of the past aid us but as we are alone in this outer or inner journey it's life changing and therefore important to the human experience. Shakespeare's Hamlet also explores one hero's journey of confronting morality. Not a physical journey but an intellectual one. His decent into revenge and the contemplation of life ends in eventual acceptance of death. We all, as people, have our own transformations. Whether it be switching roles from child to adult or something more literal along the lines of  The Epic of Gilgamesh it is something experienced by all and therefore a defining point of existence.