“Self-awareness” is a chump term;
Self-awareness is a sham;
Self-awareness requires two things:
A self, and something to be aware of the self.
What is the other something?
When he became conscious, he found himself lashed to a bowsprit, being relentlessly lashed by waves. He struggled to free himself, but could not. He consoled himself with the fact that he was helpless to stop the waves.
One day, a passing petrel asked him how he distinguished himself from the ship to which he was lashed. The question suddenly opened the man’s eyes to the fact that a ship has no home, but the sea, and that waves are the constant reassurance of its proper positioning.
A captain feels apart from the waters,
or he could not plot the ship’s navigation.
A ship cannot feel so.
(Trees have no word for “environment.”)
J.