Subtracting the “I” helps in a narrow, conditional sense and becomes harmful the moment it is mistaken for something deeper than that.
If a practice promises freedom by deleting a core cognitive function, what it usually delivers is numbness mislabeled as insig
It can bring less pain but only one very specific kind of pain. And no, it does not change the underlying causal machinery. When you replace “I am angry” with fr example “there is anger,” you are performing a linguistic–attentional maneuver. Nothing more. It can reduce secondary suffering connected to rumination, self-blame, identity threat, narrative escalation. But the nervous system still produces anger. Cortisol still rises. Muscles still tense. The affect is just as causally effective. Nothing ontological has shifted. You have not stepped outside phenomena. You have merely changed how much narrative fuel you pour on the fire. This is a grammatical substitution, not an exit from the system.
The risk is that if this maneuver is treated as a general practice rather than a situational tool, it can produce serious everyday damage. Why? Because the “I” is not only a source of extra suffering; it is also the mechanism for orientation, responsibility, boundary-setting, and meaning-tracking. Sustained attempts to subtract it often slide into dissociation, flattened affect, reduced initiative, difficulty making judgments, social withdrawal, and a vague sense of unreality. People call this “peace.” Clinically, it often looks like depersonalization with a spiritual vocabulary.
By presenting “no I” as the pinnacle, people are encouraged to suppress self-referential processing wholesale instead of using it selectively. That’s like removing the steering wheel because it sometimes jerks, you get less vibration, but you also lose control. A sober formulation would be the suggestion to sometimes loosening identification with self-talk reduces unnecessary amplification of pain. Trying to live without the “I” reduces agency. Pain may feel quieter, but the cost is clarity and functional engagement. The organism does not become freer; it becomes less articulated because never forget that the demonized "I" is amplifier of body's signals.
Subtracting the “I” is neither salvation nor delusion. It is a limited regulatory technique that works only when applied tactically, temporarily, and with full awareness that the “I” is a function, not a mistake. ht.