If you would take a look at the human being, you would definitely see the physical aspect at first bat. This is because it is the easiest part of the human being to look at. With our body parts and our body language, these and more comprise the human being as a whole.

But let us take a look beyond the physical component. Is it really justifiable to say that the human being has a metaphysical component? If so, what is it? Is it the mind? Or, dare I say, is it what has been popularly termed as the human spirit?

This has attracted the attention of a lot of people all over the world, particularly because of its association with the different religions and the beliefs and principles coined with each one of them. As forged by Christianity, the human spirit is actually the essence of life in each human being. The teachings of Christianity further pose that the human spirit is eternal, and God Himself created each human spirit for each human being. This is where the concept of the human spirit gets a little bit vague because of its eternal state. Being eternal, the human spirit does not have a beginning or an end, much like God, the ultimate creator of mankind. Now, being human beings, we get a little bit squeamish on the matter because we inherently want to understand everything that comes our way. When we purchase a certain product, let’s say a DVD player, we know that it comes from the many parts that have been assembled by engineers and technicians working for this multibillion dollar corporations. These DVD players have a beginning, and an ultimate end, which would come with the players getting destroyed or damaged from usage in the long run. This is a concept we all can deal with physically. We can see the DVD player for ourselves, and we can see how our usage of the player would inevitably come to an end.

But the human spirit is an intangible concept, and this makes us a bit uncomfortable, as to which side of the fence we should situate ourselves in. Regardless of which side, it still remains a fact that we will have a lot of questions left unanswered in the long run. For starters, I ask myself sometimes, is this all there is to life? We wake up, take a bath, eat breakfast, kiss our loved ones goodbye, go about our daily routines, whether we are still students or professionals, unwind a bit, go home, go to sleep, and that’s it. The next day, we go about the same routine, with the occasional change or two happening on the side.

Is this all there really is to life? What is that driving force that enables us to think and make decisions for ourselves and for our loved ones? What is that intangible force that guides us in choosing which commitments to embrace in life, thereby letting these destroy us or develop us? Yes, we have our brains with the logical and emotional spheres clearly defined in terms of developmental psychology. But what makes our brains tick? I don’t really buy the notion that our thoughts merely come from the synapses formed when information is transferred from the axons of a cell to the dendrites of another cell. There has to be more than just the electrical and chemical synapses in the process of creating one’s thoughts, opinions, beliefs, and principles.

For me, it all boils down to faith and the things we believe in. I myself would like to think there is something more to life than the mundane things we go through every day. It does not really matter to me what religion or scientific principle would fuel such beliefs. I would like to think we are more than the electrical and chemical signals are brains give off. And I would like to think that the human spirit is the guiding force behind these signals. There really has to be more to life than just this.