For the individual is almost universally unaware that he has learned to confuse himself with a political and legal fiction, a theory of the individua… - Alan Watts

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For the individual is almost universally unaware that he has learned to confuse himself with a political and legal fiction, a theory of the individual without physical or biological foundation. His identity is thus a construct built up through years of self-dramatization between himself and his associates, that is, a purely artificial status or role. It is this role which he mistakes for his essential self and that he fears to lose in death, And because the role defines him as a separate individual and an independent agent, his identification with it blinds him to his union with the external world.