I always just want to be aware enough that I have a choice. I want to be able to separate discretely what I've learned from the state or condition my mind was i

I always just want to be aware enough that I have a choice. I want to be able to separate discretely what I've learned from the state or condition my mind was in before I learned it, and I want to be able to determine whether I am better or worse for it. I practice what I call 'conceptual destruction', where I identify the foundational elements of a thought process, and I practice thinking without being able to use them. It can sometimes be difficult, but my ultimate goal is to have a sharp, stable, quick, flexible, cautious, careful, discerning, and so on, mind, that I created myself. I don't know if I am fooling myself half the time with things my mind does anyway without my explicit direction, but I like having a vast, partially independently established, pedantically defined and carefully organized system for 'ways of thinking'. It's the only thing I really truly care about maintaining myself: having the capacity to condition myself, and having the intuition to be able to detect and identify when someone is trying to do it for me, or something is doing it for me by chance. I don't like having to depend on culture for how to think, I want to be able to know how to think on my own. It just makes the world less scary for me; it's an ability to rely on myself.