There's a sense in which you can never be in an image before yourself, because the image is separate from you by being held out FOR you, and in that sense there's nothing in particular I AM, just ... that I am. It's really all I am, all I want to be, and all I would hope to be seen for. Of this comes beauty and intelligence and grace and so on, which I share in because they are natural manifestations of life.
At the same time I have some "self-image" of being a number of things, such as being nothing but a thing of blood and sinew and so on for others to take advantage of in every way, of being spiteful, vicious, obnoxious, vampiric, and so on, although it is sometimes of other things like being justified, or patient, or clever, or of milder things very much like Kyrielle's description.
The things in my self-image don't really seem to have a cause. They just appear and I just buy into them, or maybe I can resist them. It's fed off reaction and activity though. If you stop and sit still, so does your mind, and the self-image fixation evaporates in a few minutes, or will at least subside.
It's like a madhouse, really. I don't know why the self doesn't really stick to itself easily and kind of slops off in self-forgetfulness. I don't know why. Many things are very easy to learn, but the mind learning stickiness to itself is apparently a feat of high culture and divine grace. Almost as readily is graphite shaped into diamond. Both processes seem to require a remarkable amount of heat and pressure.