It is as though this self—which is a mere configuration of past and present contingencies—has been fired in the kiln of anxiety to emerge as something fixed. Fixed but also brittle. The more precious it becomes to me, the more I must guard it against attack. The circumstances in which I feel at ease become ever narrower and more circumscribed. SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS IS AT once the most obvious and central fact of my life and the most elusive. If I search for myself in meditation, I find it is
