Much of what you write seems to touch on the illusion of the self and how this is the source of a good number of our problems. However, I think I can differentiate between two 'selves': there's the 'fictional' self which is the one which creates either hypothetical future scenarios (about which we can scare ourselves sh*tless) or which ruminates needlessly over past regrets; and there's an 'authentic' self which seems to me at least to be able to step back and observe such imaginings more dispassionately. This latter self seems to be able to experience moments which are hard to put into words because they seem to be accompanied by feelings of expansiveness or perhaps transcendence, and they are very fleeting, but the poets and mystics have spoken and written about them throughout the ages, and far more eloquently than I can muster.