Crack the World's Shell

"If that was real," Mary Lou said firmly. "everything else in my life has been a hallucination."
Simon grinned. "Now," he said calmly, "you’re getting the point."
-The Illuminatus Trilogy, Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson

Before we can learn anything about the true self and objective reality, we must unlearn everything that has become automatic to the human automaton mentally, emotionally, and physically.
What the common human ordinarily considers self, if they consider self at all, is in reality a body of unconscious habits. We are constantly being run by a predetermined set of unconscious thought cycles, emotional cycles, and bodily cycles. We tend to be completely unaware of these cycles and will even insist that we do have what is called self control. But you certainly cannot control an animal which you are unaware of and blind to.
Being able to hold your urine until you can make it to the toilet and keeping your uncomfortable and unseemly clothes and shoes on, even on a hot day in the presence of a beckoning body of water, does not qualify as self control. As a matter of fact, you have been conditioned to hold your urine and keep your clothes on, and can’t really take credit for those behaviors.
If you were in fact "in control" you could choose to urinate in your pants during a social gathering and not apologize or explain that you are conducting an experiment exploring the limits of your conditioning as a human primate.
The words self control and free will are tossed around in this culture like mardis gras beads. They are worthless because they refer to something other than real self control and free will. You cannot posses certain qualities merely by proclaiming that you do.

It is not enough to say that god gave you free will.
If you don’t exercise it, you don’t have it.

The creator gave you ears as well but that doesn’t automatically mean that you can wiggle them, that takes practice. The problem with attempting to control the self is that you have to have some knowledge of it.
When your Aunt tells you that the cake was delicious and you answer, "I did it myself." ,what do you mean? What baked the cake?
That which baked the cake has little idea what it is. That which baked the cake is, objectively speaking, no more glorious than a wind up toy or a nano pet. It does have a potentially objective use, but to use it you will have to master it, and to master it you will have to face it and break it.

The phase following this violent act of "cracking the worlds shell" is a phase for introducing new possibilities. But before the new horizon can be visible, the old constructs will need to be demolished.
For the next week keep a small notebook handy. From time to time notice yourself as if you were watching a character in a movie. Take note of small gestures, postures, and nuances of speech that define your character. Take these notes as if you were going to give them to an actor that is going to play your part.

Don't try to find the significance of the gestures. Don't try to change them or make them better. Don't try to figure out why they are are there or where they came from.

Simply write them down or draw them when you need to. Write very detailed instructions for each little gesture. Go over them many times, until you feel you have described them completely.