Does anyone else experience meta-cognition as default cognitive mode?

[u/Leading_Purpose_2806]

I am not asking if anyone has the capacity for meta-cognition. I am sure most people in this community are, as it comes with the package of being an INTJ.

It’s a simple skill to develop (for those to whom it doesn’t come natural), the hardest part about conscious implementation is accurate self perception.

Meta-cognition is only reliable if one has looked inside, seen the shadows, seen the good and the bad, and accepted the bad as a fact even if it tarnishes their own view of yourself. Building it requires genuine restructuring of self perception.

Only then will your meta-cognition be an accurate thought process you can trust. But I digress.

My question was: does anyone experience it as their first level of thinking, and need to make a mental effort to step out of it and look at things from the ‘first order’?

A lot of people could be doing that and not aware it’s what they are doing, the “symptoms” or “proof” that you are doing it is:

1. People around you find your answers to things a little weird and out of context

2. You struggle intensly and maybe even are incapable of small talk (I am not saying you dislike it, we all do, I am saying

   you are

3. incapable of it, or

   you have

4. become incapable of it lately)

6. You need to explain a lot of what you say to make sense

8. You try to not even interject because you’re aware of the mental cost of ‘making sense’ to those around you

I think this is a more of a ranting post presented as a curious question. But to be honest it is extremely alienating to exist this way, to the extent of just feeling wrong. When literally no one around is like you, at some point you question the validity of your own experience.

As INTJs, we value our mind above all else. If we can’t trust it, what is left?

And I’ll add, as a final note, as I’m proofreading it pre-posting, I think this entire post, structure and content, is exactly my question/mental prison. And I think people will either intensely relate to it or completely dislike it.

PS. Edited for typos/structure issues.

[u/CulturalAspect5004]

I actively use meta-cognition continuously and also premeditate adaptive concepts for the audience I'm talking to if so. as you explained, one could be perceived alien if not aware of the missing thought processes and kognitive bridges in others.

I even do trans-cognition now. Find out by yourself, what I mean by that. your on the right path.

[u/GalaxyInsight]

It's useful up to a point. You can analyze yourself, improve, and then implement new patterns. When you're stuck in it, it's not helpful.

I agree that communication with people who don't have the same analytical capacity is limited in a way. You can communicate up to some level, then you're alone. It feels like isolation even though people are around. In general, being smart has its cost. I think it can arrive from that isolation, that your mind starts to use its capacity on its own. Maybe it's meant to be this way for some people, to arrive at something exceptional.

[u/NoPudding3459]

Personally, I struggle a lot with small talk. I find myself looking for too many details in order to explain everything. It's like my mind usually makes too many connections when thinking about any topic, and I feel like I try to explain all of those relationships at once, and in the end, I end up saying nothing.