The older I get, the more I am convinced that we do not have a central, organizing element, principle, or object called a self. There Is No You: Seeing Through the Illusion of the Self, by Andre Halaw, presents many ways of viewing this scenario.
Perhaps the most compelling is the constantly changing nature of everything. We expect our entire world to change, often quickly and sometimes to our detriment. We expect our bodies to change. If we eat too much we grow heavy. As we get older, our bodies age. But we expect some timeless and essentially unchangeable thing as the self to exist. I am the same self I was a three, we say, with some adjustments.
Halaw explains in patient, clear prose, how the sense of self is an illusion – often a necessary one, but only for certain tiny slivers of our existence. We are much more.
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