As I read Ed Batista’s entry about meta-experience, I found myself nodding my head.

I could go on, but my point is simply this: Now that we’ve begun to capture and make use of our personal metadata, we’re going to become increasingly conscious of the resulting meta-experiences. And we’re going to want more. (Of course, all this has huge implications for the field of attention.) More to come, I’m sure.

I think that the thing Ed says without saying is this: most of us, aware that this information can be captured, suddenly want to know more about ourselves. Someone might ask me, “Who’s your favorite musical act?” If asked, I might give pause and say, “Hmmm … I don’t really know.” I might also try to tailor that answer to avoid embarrassment—not that I’m really embarrassed about the music I listen to, really—or unfamiliarity. [While it's kinda cool to play music geek and say that you love really obscure stuff, it's also pretentious. Not that I am unpretentious. ] But if you really wanted to know, you could find out that I really do love Over the Rhine most of all.

Yes, I well imagine that it’s easy to see this desire to know self as being awfully egocentric and maybe even narcissistic, but man … I really am interested in trying to figure myself out. I think that we all are, whether our desire is truly egocentric—wholly concerned with needs of self—or is aimed more at knowing self to know role in terms of being better in relationships, society, etc.

After all, one can’t dissect a living thing … and I hated dissection anyway.