I think this is where what one is talking about in terms of 'self awareness' is the difference. If it's just a verbal knowledge....then I could see that most people continue to increase that throughout their lives. I think this is what you write above that means little with respect to their issues.

Like the way people can be very rigid in their minds....and know that they are so, but this doesn't make them less rigid. I think oftentimes this is what people even on this forum mean when they say they 'know themselves' and what they like and don't like. I could agree that this type of knowledge probably increases in a lot of people over their lifetimes.

However, this isn't what I think of as self awareness. For me this is the awareness that would, for example, actually dissolves that kind of rigidity. That's the kind of self awareness that I don't see very much of.