"The self you have betrayed is your mind; self-esteem is reliance on one’s power to think. The ego you seek, that essential “you” which you cannot express or define, is not your emotions or inarticulate dreams, but your intellect, that judge of your supreme tribunal whom you’ve impeached in order to drift at the mercy of any stray shyster you describe as your “feeling.”"
Ayn Rand, For the New Intellectual, 177
Yeah great depiction of ego there. But what is the self at it's core outside of ego and the mind?
Nothing.
Pretty good answer. It would contrast the something quite harmoniously. But I feel that it's not just nothing. I feel that we all have a "feeling" associated to it that we struggle to describe. Then again it could just be another feeling while feeling the feeling that I depict to be the feeler.
As the human beings we have feelings. They are chemical reactions in our bodies. We can identify ourselves with those reactions, but then there is now objective measure to consider reality. Feelings are subjective not objective. They depend on our personal life experience, religion, culture and so on.
Only by using reason we can judge objectively. Only by objective judgement we can decide what we really agree with, what is in our long term interest, what is trully good for us - finally - what should be our worldview.
Our body + our worldview + reason = we
Fellings should be in the grip of the reason.