The Myth of the Separate Self: You Are Not Who You Think You Are
Our feeling of being an isolated self is a cultural illusion. We don’t come into the world; we grow out of it, like apples on a tree.
Introduction
The most fascinating question is “Who am I?” We all feel a sense of self when we say the word “I.” But this feeling is mysterious and hard to grasp. You cannot look directly into your own eyes without a mirror. You cannot bite your own teeth or taste your own tongue. There is always a mystery to who we are at our core. In Western culture, we have a common idea of the self. We feel we are an ego, a center of awareness, inside a bag of skin. This idea shapes how we see everything. But it may not be the complete truth about who we are.
The Illusion of the Isolated Self
We often speak as if we are separate from our bodies. We say, “I have a body,” not “I am a body.” We feel our heart beats on its own, apart from our “I.” Most of us locate this “I” inside our heads, somewhere between our eyes and ears. The rest of our body seems to dangle from this command center. It is like a little person inside our skull, watching signals from our eyes and ears on a screen. This little person controls our voluntary actions. But our involuntary actions seem to happen to us.
This creates the sensation of being an island. We feel locked inside our skin, facing a world that is not us. This leads to a feeling of hostility and separation from our surroundings. We talk about the “conquest of nature” as if we are at war with it. We feel like strangers in a world we did not make. This feeling of being a lonely self comes from powerful stories our culture tells us.
But these stories are based on a misunderstanding of our place in the universe.
The Two Great Myths That Shape Us
For centuries, Western thought has been shaped by two big ideas, or myths. These are not falsehoods, but stories we use to make sense of things. The first is the idea of the world as an artifact. It suggests the universe is like a table made by a carpenter or a pot made by a potter. The book of Genesis tells us God formed man from clay and breathed life into him. This story makes us think everything is made, not grown.
This is why a child in our culture asks, “How was I made?” They get the idea that their parents gave them a body, and their soul was put inside it. This reinforces the feeling of being a spirit trapped in a physical shell. We see ourselves as being put into this world. We imagine that the creator knows how everything was made, and one day all will be explained. This idea of a cosmic maker who sees and knows all eventually became too much for many people.
The constant feeling of being watched by a judge became oppressive.
From Cosmic Judge to Blind Machine
To escape the oppressive celestial eye, we created a new myth. This is the myth of the purely mechanical universe. It became popular in the 19th and 20th centuries and is now common sense for many. This idea suggests that the universe is dumb and stupid. It says that intelligence, love, and values exist only inside the human skin. Outside of us, there is only a chaotic interaction of blind forces. Life is seen as a product of a ruthless, unthinking lust.
Our own intelligence is presented as an accident. We are a strange fluke of evolution in a universe that has nothing in common with us. It does not share our feelings or have any interest in our existence. Our only hope, then, is to beat this irrational universe into submission and conquer it. This is a very lonely and alienating picture of our existence. It exchanges an all-knowing father figure for a world that is completely stupid.
This new story of a dumb universe fails to make sense for a simple reason.
You Are the Universe “Peopling”
You cannot get an intelligent living thing out of a fundamentally unintelligent system. An apple tree produces apples. We call it an apple tree because it “apples.” In the same way, our solar system, on planet Earth, “peoples.” We grow out of this world just as apples grow on an apple tree. Evolution, if it means anything, means that we are a symptom of the universe as a whole. We are not a fungus or slime that appeared on a dead collection of rocks by chance.
We disconnect intelligence from the physical world, but that is a mistake. Where there are rocks, just wait. Those rocks will eventually come alive and have people crawling on them. An acorn is going to turn into an oak tree. It has that potential within it. Rocks are not dead. They are a very basic form of consciousness. When you hit a crystal, it responds. That resonance is a simple form of awareness. Our consciousness is just much more complex. We are not a complicated form of minerals. Minerals are a basic form of consciousness.
This view changes our relationship with the universe from one of conflict to one of connection.
Conclusion
The feeling of being a separate “I” is a powerful myth, but it is not the only way to see ourselves. We are not strangers who came into a foreign world. We grew out of it. The two great myths of the West, the divine artifact and the blind machine, both create a sense of isolation. They place us against the universe. But if we see ourselves as an expression of the universe, everything changes. We are the universe experiencing itself. We are the apple on the tree. This shift in perspective moves us from feeling alone to feeling at home. It helps us see that we are deeply connected to everything around us.
Are you a stranger here, or are you the universe itself? The answer may change how you live.
Key Takeaways
Our sense of being an isolated “I” inside our body is a cultural idea, not a fact.
This feeling creates a sense of conflict between us and the external world.
Western culture has been shaped by two myths: the world as a created artifact and the world as a blind machine.
Both myths lead to a feeling of alienation from the universe.
A more logical view is that we grow out of the world, just like an apple grows on a tree.
We are not separate from the universe; we are an expression of its intelligence.
Source
Official Alan Watts Org
Myth of Myself Full Lecture Part 1 - Alan Watts Organization Official