“When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness is the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote "happy". They told me I didn't understand the assignment and I told them they didn't understand life. "― John Lennon Let's start at the beginning. The universe exists. Reality is real on its own terms, just as it is: self-generated space-time. Furthermore, I exist, as a product of and within that space-time. Here's why I needed to learn to think, to control the acts that decide whether to continue living or die, and in what terms. Because when I started, I didn't know how to think, any more than I knew what to think about anything... I had to learn to learn. Other people were helpful to me but not primary, so I learned to get along with them and without them. I was learning to assert my “individuality” in reality in order to make responsible use of my future adult freedom. selfish self-affirmation – knowing how to behave as a mentally separate, physically separate and definitive person....