A crucial step on this journey is to acknowledge that the “self” is a fictional story that the intricate mechanisms of our mind constantly manufacture, update, and rewrite. There is a storyteller in my mind that explains who I am, where I come from, where I am heading, and what is happening to me right now. Like the government spin doctors who explain the latest political upheavals, my inner narrator repeatedly gets things wrong but rarely admits it. And just as the government builds a national myth with flags, icons, and parades, so my inner propaganda machine creates a personal myth with
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