Thank you for responding and thinking about this. There is a lot to unpack here. First: My favorite title for a book is Jerry Harvey's "How Come Every Time I Get Stabbed in the Back My Fingerprints are on the Knife". You don't need to read the book to get the idea. It is simply in every scene or situation we find ourselves ask the question "What was my contribution/choices did I make to this situation or "now"?

Second: There is a kind of paradox about the idea of a stronger self. Our idea of self is in large part constructed by our conditioning or what we know. Conditioning away from agency which is created over time thus it takes time to uncreate. It turns out, paradoxically, that "decentering", toning down or even "absence of self" can be a direct path to agency. In a way it is timeless.