There is Nothing to Defend and No Story to Weave

People spend a lot of time defending themselves. I don't mean physically, with swords or kung fu blocks or something. I mean, in an unexamined consciousness, there is an assumed sense of self, a kind of 'essense of you' inside the mind. This is who you are and this is what's happened to you; so you have a self and a story. If someone critisises this then it needs to be defended. Someone suggests that you don't work as hard as you might say. The initial reaction is defensive. Perhaps you consider this statement in the light of the self's story, i.e. what's happened in your life so far, and decide that this isn't true, and so argue. It's not just the story of your self that needs to be defended or it's qualities. Your self also has values and opinions. When you hear a contrary one, you feel you have to state your self's position, to defend it or evangelise it. But if you close your eyes and look for the 'self', there's just ever-changing consciousness. Maybe that's disconcerting, so you try harder to locate self. Perhaps sit down daily for an extended period looking for the permenent 'you' inside your mind. The most you can find is an awareness in the passing moment that has access to memories of what has been previously percieved by the senses begining a few years after consciousness became aware in the body. This gives rise to a sense of a self with a story existing in the mind when you choose to think about it. But a memory isn't a self. When you stop thinking about it, the mind goes onto something else. So many interactions between people or thoughts in the mind are trying to weave a story about a self that doesn't exist. Like two silly people spending their whole lives arguing over a ball of wool and during the fight it gets all unravelled and now there's no ball, just a long piece of string and they are confused as to where the ball went. It's gone, they're just left with the world and the rest of their lives.