Brandon,

It seems to me that we're in agreement on this. The "lack of true self" bit resonates with me in particular.

It's a curious thing: depressed people spend an enormous amount of time introspecting but if you were to ask them to describe themselves I would bet most of them are pretty bad at it. Conversely, healthy people spend most of their time looking outside, but my experience has been that they're experts on their own quirks and nuances.

There's an irony there, in that self-attention apparently doesn't translate to self-knowledge.

Best,

J