The heart keeps beating on its own, even when you’re not consciously controlling it. Breathing, the stomach, the intestines, the flow of blood—almost none of it is something you actively control. I think the brain is like that too. Thoughts pop up even though you aren’t trying to think. Memories surface even though you’re not trying to recall them. You don’t try to feel them, yet you get anxious or happy. And yet, for some reason I think, “I’m the one moving this body.” But is that really true? Most of this body is moving independently of my consciousness. If that’s the case, where is the “self” located? In the brain? Spread throughout the whole body? Or is it that what happens inside the body is later called “me”? Why do humans have the sense that “I am inside this body”?
Rather than thinking of myself as being somewhere, I think I am the very flow that rises in this moment 🥲 My heart, guts, and brain move on their own, and within that, the state where the spotlight happens to land on ‘I feel like I’m here’ is what I guess is ‘me.’