Hello my excellent friend, I am glad to see someone else who is interested in examining life, and all its thought-provoking questions. Moreover, I agree with Kierkegaard's, as well as the general existentialist persepctive on the self; namely, a "relation relating to itself," a "nothingness," a "constant state of becoming," and finally a "contradiction." (These aforesaid interpretations come from, Kierkegaard, Sartre, Heidegger/Nietzsche respectively). Why do I prefer these interpretations you might wonder? Because the self never seems to be something static/unchanging in any genuine sense, hence it can be a difficult, if not impossible concept to grasp (fully anyway). Additionally, the self [as far as I believe] must be thought of in a way that precedes even [i]a priori[/i] principles and faculties one may consider to be part of the structure of the mind, for these aforesaid faculties must be in reference to [b]something[/b], whether it be a nothingness or something else, insofar as it is the absolute primordial aspect of subjectivity [i.e. the self is that which experiences]. In other words, when you think about this seriously, it is incorrect to say something like; "I have a soul" Not because a soul does not exist, but because if we consider the soul to literally be the subject, the nothingness [the consciousness that ecperiences] then the "I" in the proposition is allready the soul. Thus it seems one runs into an absurdity, or circular reasoning. In other words you can't have possession of yourself as if you somehow got outside yourself, you just ARE yourself. I hope to hear your thoughts, and I am very happy to share mine with those curious individuals who see the beauty in philosophical examination!