I'll try and provide my own answer and compare it with others.

Ultimate concerns are preoccupied with existential problems raised from living life itself and trying to find meaning in it. The most prominent ultimate concerns consist of life, death, nothingness, and meaninglessness. I would also like to lump into one of the concerns is finding something aesthetic in accompanying one's journey through life. I hypothesize that this can be found in the presence of a significant other. There doesn't seem to be anything more important in one's life than appreciating the care or deeds a parent or significant other or even socially a teacher can endow onto another person.

I believe that these are the foundations of life that we stand on and cultivate in appreciation and realization in our own lives.

Should the unexamined life consist of an examination of ultimate concerns, such as those found in existentialism? — Shawn

The unexamined life? My notion is that the examined life is examined. And it is examined by a process of examining. Thus to live that life is to examine. Examine what, you ask? That which needs to be examined. And how do I know what needs to be examined, you ask? By examining. And so forth.

The OP is right on the money - life, death, nothingness, meaninglessness are what an examined life is about. However, we have to trust Charles Darwin's insight: there's a perfectly good reason why we're externally-oriented rather than internally so. Perhaps the answers to questions about a country's internal affairs are to be found in its external affairs. Look outside to see what's inside! :chin:

Ultimate concerns are preoccupied with existential problems raised from living life itself and trying to find meaning in it. The most prominent ultimate concerns consist of life, death, nothingness, and meaninglessness. I would also like to lump into one of the concerns is finding something aesthetic in accompanying one's journey through life. — Shawn

I understand the idea that we have problems without bringing them upon ourselves. One could say that the examination finds us, not the other way around. Such a formulation seems to be at odds with the expression, 'the unexamined life is not worth living.' How the idea is understood leads to very different points of view.

If it means one can chart the difference between the 'speculative' and the 'practical' with confidence, problems formed by asking for them is a pastime, comparable to playing bridge or throwing darts. If the difficulties we face keep leading us to places where nothing can be distinguished from each other, the need for context is not a luxury.

From that perspective, your list already has crossed the line you draw. We all know the fear of death but speculate about death because reports on that subject are not reliable. We struggle to understand meaning against the backdrop of confusion as a given in our condition. It is not like we had a proper lexicon at one point in time but it was snatched away from us. The problem can be ignored. The value of doing that against not doing that could be framed as a measure of worth, but any sort of comparison gets back to the difficulty tim wood observed. The absence of a measurement is not one of the possible measurements.

And the matter of aesthetics is a clear crossing of the line because simply liking stuff requires no reflection. Once one starts having problems with preferences, what is the place where these preferences are comparable? Why do other people want stupid things? Why are all my problems so annoyingly joined together with all these other people?

The unexamined life? — tim wood

Examine what, you ask? That which needs to be examined. And how do I know what needs to be examined, you ask? By examining. And so forth. — tim wood

Well, yes. I believe you understand the issue. It doesn't seem to be a vicious circle, as it seems to me based on how you evaluate examination. The result of examining ultimate concerns aforementioned in the OP should be greater comfort and satisfaction in life when bedrock has been found to those concerns that can lead to dread or angst. What are your thoughts about the topic further based on my response?

I also want to add that the OP will be changed slightly as that may cause some confusion.

Should the unexamined life consist of an examination of ultimate concerns, such as those found in existentialism?

What are your thoughts? — Shawn

From a pragmatic-psychological point of view, someone will say that you should cultivate activities which put your mind in a flow state so as not to dwell much in the despair of existentialism. Think Maslow maybe or positive psychology, or any book about flow states.

Other common responses are involving yourself with groups and civic activities and learning something new. Combine these and repeat. You can now pay me for your existential therapy session :).

From a philosophical pessimist perspective, there is a deep boredom that can never be satisfied. We rush to experience trials and challenges so as not to get bored. More food for thought about uniquely human conditions:

1) We use technology and items that we have no idea how they work. We are a forever behind the veil of our own mode of production and living. You are ignorant in any highly detailed way, of your own way of being and survival.

2) Relationships are supposed to be important ways to fill our lives with some meaning, yet in our species, our own social and psychological proclivities prevent easy closeness and intimacy.

3) We are a species that can know we don't like something as we continue doing it. We don't like a task, but must overcome our distaste for more long term goals like financial reward for survival.

4) Our boredom is a special kind due to our own self-reflective nature brought about by our unique linguistic and broader cognitive capacities.

From a philosophical pessimist perspective, there is a deep boredom that can never be satisfied. We rush to experience trials and challenges so as not to get bored. — schopenhauer1

:fire: :100: ... P. W. Zapffe (absurdist)

Ultimate concerns are preoccupied with existential problems raised from living life itself and trying to find meaning in it. The most prominent ultimate concerns consist of life, death, nothingness, and meaninglessness. — Shawn

"Life, death, nothingness and meaninglessness", to my mind, are some proximate concerns (re: facticity) whereas the whole of reality (divinity), the nature of nature (transformations), suffering (sentience) ... are the ultimate concerns (re: background (or horizons) of facticity). "The examined life", thereby, consists in reasoning to better, more probative, questions about 'proximate concerns' in the context – framework – of reasoning to better, more probative, questions about 'ultimate concerns', and, IMO, by reflectively living, the Understanding (re: lucidity which regulates judgment and conduct) – in contrast to Knowledge (i.e. 'good explanations' for matters of fact) – flourishes, or gradually is optimized.

"The examined life", thereby, consists in reasoning to better, more probitive, questions about 'proximate concerns' in the context – framework – of reasoning to better, more probitive, questions about 'ultimate concerns', and, IMO, by reflectively living, the Understanding (re: lucidity which regulates judgment and conduct) – in contrast to Knowledge (i.e. 'good explanations' for matters of fact) – flourishes, or gradually is optimized. — 180 Proof

This notion raises the old contentious existential question of Free Will. If "the examined life" looks both within (reflectively) and without (objectively), as navel-gazing philosophers, should we be content to merely "optimize" our personal worldview (facticity??). Or as enlightened examiners, are we morally compelled to attempt to "optimize" the world around us?

As an introvert (by fate, not choice), I am not motivated to "tilt at windmills" or to devote my life to changing the course of the whole world. But I do feel obligated to improve the tiny part of the world that is within my reach. And my examination reveals that I am not alone in that notion of limited optimization. So I feel confident that, over time, humanity will make the world a better place --- even if we have to terra-form Mars to do it. :cool:

Facticity :
"Facticity plays a key part in Quentin Meillassoux's philosophical project to challenge the thought-world relationship of correlationism. Meillassoux defines it as “the absence of reason for any reality"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facticity

“The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it."
___Karl Marx -- after examining the bleak lives of working class Europeans
Note -- although his ambitious project has failed to create a proletarian utopia in our time, it has dramatically changed the general attitude toward heredity & hierarchy, and of meekly accepting the status quo of the lower classes. Along with Democracy, Socialism has upgraded the lives of peons and peasants around the world. Of course, major social evolution take mucho time. So, as experience has demonstrated, Utopia can't be built in a day, and one pyramid took 20,000 men a lifetime. :confused:

If "the examined life" looks both within (reflectively) and without (objectively), as navel-gazing philosophers, should we be content to merely "optimize" our personal worldview (facticity??) — Gnomon

Be here now: One must become the change one seeks.

Or as enlightened examiners, are we morally compelled to attempt to "optimize" the world around us?

Yes, as exemplars of "the examined life" and principled participants in solidarity with other activists and movements. Solitaire et solidaire. :death: :flower:

I feel confident that, over time, humanity will make the world a better place --- even if we have to terra-form Mars to do it.

Given the current state of humanity's failure to effectively remediate anthropogenic climate change, we can't even "terra-form" Earth ... I'm less "confident", Gnomon, but if we do make things better on this planet, that'll have come about by having improved ourselves enough to leave Earth to rewild herself and either live permanently in space (though not on moons or other planets) or haplessly succumbed to a global extinction-event.

Be here now: One must become the change one seeks. — 180 Proof

Yes, but Ghandi was more motivated to extend his reach to his whole nation. And it worked! But, was that change of direction due to his Free Will choices, or to the accidents of Fate? Obviously those who stick their necks out are highly motivated to change, not just themselves, but their recalcitrant world.

As a fated intovert, I lack such deep feeling and passionate drive. So, I'm more content to just "be here now", and to reach-out and touch only those within arm's reach. That's why I post on safe forums instead of marching in the streets. :smile:

Given the current state of humanity's failure to effectively remediate anthropogenic climate change, we can't even "terra-form" Earth ... I'm less "confident", Gnomon, — 180 Proof

I'm not supremely confident. But I'm also not discouraged by the doom & gloom of modern media gossip. Instead, I am encouraged by the incremental progressive steps that are often overlooked by the "nattering nabobs of negativity". (pace Spiro Agnew)

One minor example is Elon Musk's entrepreneurial optimism to put the idealistic Green Movement into practice -- on Earth with zero-carbon cars, and perhaps someday on Mars with recyclable rockets. He has made environmentalism profitable and newsworthy, by building on the more modest efforts of tree-huggers.

Just as Ghandi's humble persistence had an impact on colonialism and minority politics, there are always a few sanguine heroes to push the world forward and upward. Sadly, many of those leaders pay for their pushiness with their lives. Inertia is inherent in the world, but Impetus is also. :cool: