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The truism “know thyself” is still extant despite its origin in ancient Greece before the birth of Socrates. This phrasal popularity arises from a human need to understand cognition and behavior. Although semantically variable, most people define it, at least intuitively, as subjective knowledge of behavioral etiologies, the emotional and cerebral underpinnings of purposive action. A more contemporary term closely related to the venerable verity “know thyself” is often used in academe. Metacognition is the process of thinking about thinking, analyzing discrete aspects of subjective mentation to derive the strategies that work in tandem to produce complex thought. The importance of thinking metacognitively, of “knowing thyself,” is important in all social environs, academe notwithstanding. If people in college can understand metacognition in theory and praxis they can more effectively control how and what they learn.
As a college student, I will learn expansively and differentially, covering topics such as psychology, sociology, composition, calculus, organic chemistry and physics. The broad knowledge I acquire will serve as the foundation upon which I can continue building with my major – international business relations. Once I finish the degree with the structural apex (final course) new structures await me. The building process is a lifelong endeavor with all the parts forming a whole through synthesis, a final, end-of-life construction with a unified whole created from the disparate nuts and bolts of lifelong toil. One's life makes complete sense only in retrospect.
As people mature, they slowly glean information about themselves and the world that clarifies the subjective and social gestalts. Information is always fragmente...

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... supreme. When people know themselves they learn that different contexts require cognitive and behavioral adjustments. Just as ancient Greek orators would not attempt public oratory with pebbles in their mouths, soccer players would not bring a book to win a soccer game and literary theorists would not likely use complex diagrams for Marxist critiques. People must use their predominant style in concurrence with other styles to function effectively in the world writ large.
I know myself. I knew myself before I took the inventories. My metacognitive skills are developed effectively. However, I, as all people, understand myself and the world through the limited scope of social construction and subjective inquiry. I am still building. Only at the end of life can I, and all others, understand the details as a gestalt. Only then can “know thyself” reveal itself as truth.

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