# seven balls in his hand By [honey peach](https://paragraph.com/@honey-peach) ยท 2022-11-08 --- ![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/ae5e582ba964b05ca2a519ab744033ed220ac1d47f8d2676c507efd7de2b5134.png) Now, you already know that the sane man has seven balls in his hand, but did you know that he has a pair of wings behind him? Think about it, if your sensible little person could take to the air, you would be able to "fly" along the way to learning, which would be a huge advantage! Unfortunately, most people don't realize they have them, let alone wield them. If you want to awaken those wings, then follow me as I continue to explore the higher functions of the brain. A pair of wings To understand this pair of wings, we have to start in the mirror. Suppose you put a mirror in front of every animal in the world, and guess what would happen? They think that the animal in the mirror is not them, but another animal (except humans and gorillas). But humans are not like gorillas. Gorillas can only tell that the gorilla in the mirror is themselves. Once the mirror is taken away, they can't imagine another "virtual self" because their brains can only focus on what exists in reality. Even if the mirror in front of people is taken away, we can detach ourselves from the self and the current situation and imagine "another self" standing in front of us. Moreover, because this "self" is our imagination, so he is not bound by the body, he can "fly" to high places, and even can surround himself 360 degrees and observe himself, just like a pair of wings on his body. This ability to see oneself outside oneself is the ultimate human cognitive ability, metacognition. You may have never heard the word "metacognition" before, but that's okay. We just need to break it down to understand yuan, which means "head, first, first, and great" in Chinese, i.e. the highest level. For example, the top leader of a country would be called the head of state. Metacognition, which is the highest level of cognition, is able to recognize and understand its own thinking process. ![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/ae5e582ba964b05ca2a519ab744033ed220ac1d47f8d2676c507efd7de2b5134.png) It may sound like a mouthful, but metacognitive abilities are the self-awareness and reflective abilities we take for granted. This ability is not only unique to us as human beings, it is also the source of our greatness \[illustration\]. Because other animals can only rely on instinct and emotion to survive, while human beings can not only rely on reason to live, but also through reason to observe their own thinking activities, find out what is unreasonable, and then improve and optimize, constantly make better choices. With this ability, our cognitive ability and learning ability can evolve rapidly, because the mind with this ability is like a hammer, it can not only hammer a nail, it can copy another hammer to hit itself. With the right method and frequent corrections, the hammer will evolve into a more advanced tool. Metacognition is not turned on by default. Unfortunately, it's not turned on by default. At least for the first 10 years of our lives, it's hard to turn it on successfully, because our intellectual brains haven't matured enough to have the hardware for this part of the function. A person needs to be about 12 years old (sixth grade in primary school) to gradually acquire the ability of active self-reflection, but before that, people can only understand everything from their own perspective, and their attention is easily pulled away by external things. After that, things will change slowly, although but this self awareness and reflection of metacognitive ability are rarely have the opportunity to get exercise, because our rational brain while in school for a lot of exercise, but exercise is a focus on "learning, understanding, memory and computing" these abilities, rarely involve "awareness, to reflect, review, select". Therefore, many people learn a lot of knowledge, but they are very passive in self-awareness, self-control, self-correction, self-motivation, and this passivity can be a huge obstacle to learning. It can be seen that the rational brain's ability to learn is divided into two parts -- ordinary cognitive ability and higher metacognitive ability. The latter is like a pair of invisible wings that few people notice. A person who has not turned on metacognition will unconsciously act on feelings and preferences, both physically and mentally, and will unconsciously pursue the comfort and simplicity of the present. Therefore, their learning state is often like this: they are easy to be attracted by the temptation of external things, often distracted and unaware; Lack of self-control, everything like to start from the easiest part; He is not sensitive to the mistakes he has made in his study. When he gets a bad test result, he will be sad for a while and forget it later. They never take the initiative to think about the meaning of learning, learning for them is the task required by the outside world; Mood swings, once encountered conflicts will complain, or immersed in the sad mood can not extricate themselves... They seem to flap their wings only when they are forced to, for example, to reflect and correct when they are criticized or criticized. Once back in the good times, they will continue to live by their "short-sighted, instant gratification" nature, to be lazy, to procrastinate, and to be unaware of the good or bad of their own actions. --- *Originally published on [honey peach](https://paragraph.com/@honey-peach/seven-balls-in-his-hand)*