Self is a kind of object among other objects. It is assembled out of legacy components and must pass through a number of trials which, like annealings, not only test but modify it, before being fledged or deemed fit for purpose. The probability of inherent flaws or of further breakages can be reduced but never entirely eliminated. It is specialised and purposive according to a large but finite number of distinct capabilities and specifications, while retaining some general adaptability. It is a distinguished object in a world of objects, modified continually if not continuously both by internal acts and processes and external encounters, where internal and external are only relative terms. It knows itself more extensively but not more thorougly than it knows other objects in its world but the full range of its potentialities remains largely unknown throughout its life-cycle. Self is a sort of possession of yours, you can care for it or neglect it, coddle it or thrash it, and it will bear the marks of how it has been treated; but this is only a way of speaking since there is no distinction between it and "you". There is an indeterminate and ineliminable oscillation, or vacillation, between active and passive moods when speaking about it, and in its own hidden self-reflections. It provides the chief metaphor for every kind of circular causation of effectuation. It is however not self-sufficient; the circular pathways that define it did not originate in it and are never free from participation in external systems. Its self-reference may be largely by fiat, a currency only for exchange. Still, those who insist there is no self are looking in the wrong place, as are those who believe it to be fully substantial.