Not-you

You are born into this body, a landscape where the self is born. Think of it as a world, raw materials already present—your face, your organs, your legs, your arms, your genitals. But not just that. Thoughts and feelings, shaped by senses, molded by the concepts and categories learned from the social web you’re thrown in, the air of culture you breathe. Patterns emerge, take root, become you. This is who you think you are, the story of your self. A personality, the aggregation of thoughts, a weave of feelings spun from all that was given and all that you became. You believe this pattern is the essence of you, the core. You carry this illusion like a shell, firm, substantial. You despair when cracked. You boast when puffed up. But what if you realized it’s all an old illusion—built for survival, for ease? The self, the eternal question, whether it exists or not, it falls away. The self is only a tool, a way to walk among others, a function in the human dance. Each moment offers a choice—follow the patterns laid before you, walk the path carved by all you thought you were, or break free. In the familiar, you find security. But in release, in letting go of the self you build, freedom finds you that is

not-you.