Self Aware

What does any one mean when that say that they are self aware ? Does it mean that they know who they are in the true sense of those words ? Or does it mean that one understands their own feelings, emotions, actions, desires and motives etc? What if you understood all that and still had no clue about who you were; feelings, emotions etc can be logically explained and one would be no closer to the truth of being self aware. 

Descartes had said “I think therefore I am” a loose translation from the original Latin. That simple sentence carries with it the expectation and burden of being aware of morality and consciousness. Realise the circular argument here ? One needs to be conscious and understand consciousness; in effect understand the reasons why one thinks the way they do and then use logic to justify the fact that ones thought is what one is. If this argument was entirely true (it is true to a certain extent) then how does one classify the outliners ? The ones that think different and contrary to excepted norms. Are they not self aware ? 

When one does enquires about the nature of ones self it is always done with a bias. This bias is due to experience and expectations; which in turn cloud the answers that one finds. In essence one cannot be truly self aware if the answer is based on analysis that has been biased by ones one experience. 

What then is being self aware ? It’s not the answer to the question why do I think the way I do. It’s also not the answer that is provided by self-identifying. Self identifying is an act of putting together an answer based on the past or the future. We love putting ourselves inside sets that can classify our past behaviour and then a super set is basically a union of the various sets. We then use the super set as the definition of what we identity as our self. The few that reject this make the mistake of classifying themselves based on actions they would do in the future. To be truly self aware is to be in the present. The past and the future don’t matter. What matters is the now and how you action the now. It is not easy. What I try to do is to turn my self in to an observers position and try and understand why am I thinking or doing this while doing it. Savvy ? Not easy at all. It has however gotten me closer to being self aware. 

C