Synapse XXII: The Human Condition

The theme for Synapse 2019 is The Human Condition. The human condition is made up of the characteristics, key events, and situations which form the essentials of human existence. It is a broad ageless topic that continues to be examined from many perspectives, including religion, philosophy, history, art, anthropology, psychology, and biology. In literature the human condition is typically used in the context of ambiguous subjects such as the meaning of life or moral concerns. The work is divided into four categories: intimacy, emotion, curiosity, and mortality. Intimacy focuses and explores the bonds people form within their lifetimes, including relationships, friendships, family, communities, and more. Emotion is meant to consider our ability to feel and feel others, through the exploration of parallels in emotions or with love, greed, envy, anger, or another emotion. Curiosity looks at human's innate ability to question the world with ideas of theory and religion, justice and ethics, and concepts of good and evil. Finally, mortality attempts to explain how we as people find meaning out of a life that is finite, pondering unanswerable questions like, what is life, why do I live, and what gives life meaning. This category also includes the fear of death and growth in spite of that. This collection of poems and short stories by young, emerging writers explore what it means to be human with strong metaphors, imagery, and their own experiences on humanity.