Today it perhaps makes sense to talk more about me than about concepts. To be clear, I’ll continue with those, after all, they’re fragments I want to share with anyone who enjoys reading, but today I think it makes sense to say something about myself.
Thoughts, ideas, and all their derivations don’t arise by chance but start from something. I like to define myself as “Optimistic until proven otherwise,” and perhaps, looking at 2024 and now 2025, this aspect has been the cornerstone that allowed me to evolve and begin sharing certain thoughts, certain ideas with everyone.
Now I don’t want to chronicle my life, recount certain hard or very complex moments, those who know me know them, but to get to the heart. To talk to you about metacognition. Why? Because it was the cornerstone capable of changing everything.
The breaking point: late 2024
By the end of 2024, I had essentially gone into burnout, probably with a strong component built up over the year, but that’s what it was. And until December it was objectively heavy and complex.
I used so much cognitive energy to protect work and family, to not show the weight. But that weight was there. I used noradrenaline as if it were my constant fuel. But it doesn’t work that way. Without going into medical details, it mixes with dopamine in human life with balance and activates when needed, but not always, otherwise the consequences drain you.
Metacognition activates
But metacognition has perhaps always been something present in me. The ability to stop and think about my thoughts, summarized in a few words, had always been there. But it was behind the scenes, I had no awareness or perhaps very little.
For example, I followed some dogmas of Italian culture: sacrifice regardless, “you’re the father so you must,” concepts like “the hero is the model to follow.” But I wasn’t that. And perhaps, actually I’m certain now, the 2024 burnout activated metacognition more strongly.
Controlled burnout: January-May 2025
From January 2025 to May 2025 it began working in the background but growing gradually, to the point that my definition had become “controlled burnout.” Though it was my own term, it made sense.
The controlled explosion
Because between May and June I, so to speak, had a controlled explosion, a moment where I detonated safely. And from there I began to reason, act, think, and build, or rather, rebuild.
Exponential cascade effect
Metacognition gradually activated awareness, and today I could even say meta-awareness. Then concepts of luck/bad luck, money as variables, and gradually many aspects. From containment techniques to manage complex situations to steps to improve myself. All exponentially.
Metacognition is an incredible cognitive function because when we use it consciously it becomes a vehicle capable of activating many points one after another but with exponential growth, precisely because the mind expands concepts, creates networks of nodes and connections and gradually expands.
Where I am today
Today, while still having room for improvement, I am objectively Happy. I feel freedom in my thoughts, I have no fear of saying certain nos and dismantling inadequate and wrong arguments. And I continue on this path but also with the goal, in its small way, of giving feedback to others because I believe that if I can even help just one person with a small part of this, I don’t see why not do it.
If you too are experiencing burnout, controlled or not, know that metacognition can be the first domino that rises. Stop. Observe how you think. The rest, as happened to me, might follow exponentially.
The antiheroes who guide me
And I conclude by returning to antiheroes. Those figures have always fascinated me, but now I understand why.
I’m fascinated by Churchill defined as pragmatic-ethical for how he managed the war, or figures like Sherlock Holmes, Dr. House, and even, for those who remember, the character Sylar from Heroes, but without the evil part, obviously. And I could continue with many things but I don’t want to bore you, perhaps we’ll talk about it more later.
Antiheroes don’t save the world with a heroic gesture. They change it step by step, with strategies few understand immediately. Metacognition, controlled explosion, exponential reconstruction. Not as a hero. As an antihero who knows himself.