Lately, I’ve been rethinking what it means to have a “self.” There’s a theory I can’t shake—what if we don’t have a self at all? Not in the way we think. Just a collection of roles, voices, memories, impulses, and fragments—like characters in a play. The mind as a theater. The “self” is just the audience pretending all these actors are one person.
It’s eerie, but liberating. When I feel anxious, I picture that anxiety as a nervous actor barging onstage, improvising badly. When I’m calm, maybe it’s a thoughtful narrator taking the mic. None of them are me, really—but I give them the spotlight for a while. Maybe awareness is just the light on the stage. And once you see it that way, it’s easier to forgive yourself. We’re not consistent because there’s no single performer. Just a rotating cast, doing its best.