Bear with me a little bit more with this consciousness and awareness dynamic thoughts.
In simplest of terms, I've read that "When consciousness knows that it is conscious, then it is awareness."
There's no mention of the self here. But I think one of the main differentiators between humans and other species on Earth is our ability to be self-aware.
Arguably, all living beings are conscious, which is why they're living.
For example, there are certain plants like sunflowers that open up and orient their leaves towards the sun during daylight hours and then close off and fold inward during the night.
As an exercise, I try to think of qualities that are strictly human and it sometimes take a few minutes before I can come up with one.
Funnily enough, I used to believe that only humans can speak but animals speak too, it's just that it's on a different wavelength that our ordinary minds can comprehend.
What quality can you think of that's strictly human?
I think the human thumb is quite different from other primates' thumbs.
It gives us a kind of dexterity and manipulative ability that no other creature can replicate, which is potentially a huge advantage in tool-making and solving practical complex tasks.
But actually, this isn't even a human quality per se, more like a physical feature.
However, having a vertical spine that allows us to stand upright is less of a feature and more of a defining human quality.
I think standing upright fundamentally changed how we interact with our environment and perceive the world around us.
Apart from a vertical spine to stand upright, humans can laugh and have the potential for free will. Both of which don't seem to exist for other animals in the same complex, nuanced ways.
Double-Edged Sword of Self-Awareness
It could be that our greatest distinguishing quality and also simultaneously our greatest burden is our capacity for meta-consciousness.
This could be termed here as the ability to not only be aware, but to be aware that we are aware, and then to become aware of that awareness itself.
In some ways, a recursive loop of consciousness is what has allowed us to drive human innovation and art through our unique capacity for abstract reasoning.
The attending conflict however, is when this self-referential awareness turn inwards excessively and becomes detrimental when it detaches us from direct experience.
Insomnia provides an example of being aware too much.
A person lies in bed, initially just aware of being tired. But then they become conscious of not falling asleep quickly enough.
This awareness creates anxiety, which they then become aware of, leading to thoughts like "I'm thinking too much about not sleeping, which is keeping me awake, and now I'm thinking about thinking too much..."
In this case, the very awareness that should help them recognize and address a problem becomes the problem itself.
With social interactions, hyper-self-awareness can rear its head as this tendency to constantly analyze every interaction: "Why did I say that? What did they mean when they paused? Am I being too clingy? Too distant? Am I overthinking this? Yes, I'm definitely overthinking, but now I'm thinking about overthinking..."
Of course, a known remedy for this is meditation and other mindfulness practices that focus so heavily on simply observing thoughts without judgment.
I think they do offer a way to step back a bit from the exhausting spiral of awareness watching awareness and return us to a more peaceful state of basic consciousness that other living beings seem to inhabit naturally.
Thanks for reading!! Share your thoughts below on the comments.