Mortality and Meta-Cognition
Life is a gift and so is our awareness of death.
Our brand of consciousness is distinct from all other known forms of life. And that's because of meta-cognition: our ability to think about thinking — to monitor our own experiences, thoughts, and emotions.
We don't just find pleasure in something. We place value on pleasure and strategize about how to replicate it.
We don't just feel tired, hungry, or thirsty. We know that we must meet our physical needs to survive.
We don't just live. We know that someday we will die.
This unique ability — meta-cognition — has an overwhelming influence on our experience. Everything we think and do is colored by it.
Meta-Existence
Meta-cognition elevates our awareness, which is a gift and a burden.
Take the sentence "I will die" as the prime example of this internal conflict. In those three words alone are the concepts of the self, the future, and death. Those are powerful concepts that we can wield to our advantage. But that awareness can also make us anxious, fearful, guilty, and ashamed.
Our awareness is powerful and painful, but what would life be without it? What is a human if not a self-aware, mortal being concerned with the future?
We live a meta-existence; everything we experience is filtered by our awareness. We know that we are humans having experiences (self). We are concerned about how this moment will affect the next (future). And we know that, someday, we will no longer exist (death).
Clearly, meta-cognition is not just a fun superpower we get to play with. Some days, you may envy the goose that doesn't anxiously forestall death. But hopefully, most days, you're grateful to be human.
Life is a gift and so is our awareness of death. Life grants us the divine pleasure of conscious experience, and death allows us to be grateful for that experience.
Springboard:
How often do you think about thinking? How often do you consider your own mortality? Would more meta-cognition help or hinder you in daily life?
P.S. For more existential questions, check out my recent essay on the film Everything Everywhere All at Once: "Thus Spoke the Daniels: Nietzsche's Spirit of Heaviness in EEAAO."
As an over thinker, I don’t think I need to think more about thinking. I think about death any time I travel abroad or visit relatives in their graves. Very good questions asked.