[badpun]

> Developing capabilities & skills is what differentiates me from an animal.

I thought it's conscience and compassion. Animals can learn capabilities & skills, but they don't have the concept of good and evil.

[Thursday24]

In buddhism at least, developing compassion is seen from a skill-building perspective as far as I know. Most human capabilities have to be amplified through deliberate study from our ancestry, accumulated wisdom and constant practice.

The key idea is that we can "develop" various attributes to a degree which is orders of magnitude larger than the next animal. To me, doing that is meaningful.