In the first instance reading yourself and reading an other is the same and only in the second instance do you make the distinction as to whether what is felt is of you or of that other. This isn't quite accurate because the other needs to be a semblable, a character who might be you, same sex for example, and otherwise comparable as well. When what you find is something desirable and the other has it then it is almost as if it has been taken from you, but what you feel first is that the enjoyment is not available, and only then do you find yourself as the excluded one, etc. If it turn out to belong to you then you feel a stab of superiority. The point of this is that on this more rapid subliminal level you as individual or 'ego' do not exist, meaning you are not a distinct element in the resolution in understanding of the situation. Your brain, you might say, does not have a constant symbolisation of yourself, but constructs it rapidly and retrospectively from the situation being constituted. This is a matter of computational flexibility if nothing else, what is 'you' needs to be available in many different forms depending on context, so can't be pregiven. On the neuronal level you are ego-blind. This is what makes social living possible and also what causes it to be endlessly complicated.