Us or Them?

Sitting by the roadside, watching the little birds squabble amongst themselves for food underneath the car tires, I can't help but wonder what makes me so different from them? That is to say, I understand that biologically I am different, mentally I am different... but really what is it about ME that makes me not THEM? To what design, or intention was I born as a human being, with my relatively weak body and advanced thinking capacities... and not a creature of a different order all together. Was it decided at the moment of my conception, my insertion into the material world that I would be born in the body of a human being and not any other? Who decides? Or does this all just occur through some strange chance or coincidence? These are questions which come to me almost everyday, looking at the plants, insects, birds... looking at the world of nature of which I am both a part of and yet, by virtue of my species so distant from. Was there someone, or something that determined my place in the greater order of the world? Which begs the question; what is my purpose? Or... is it perhaps just a coincidence, and everything had just fallen into place and it is my complex human mind that cannot accept it is so? Who am I? Who are they? And why are our positions so? Sometimes I can't help but wonder if they look at us, and think about the same things we think about when we look at them.

I wonder, on average 7-8 times a day, who am I?