"a self is something you just have" vs. the self as a struggle to be built — Hal's hollowness and AA's effortful…

echoes

Early text: "we've taught them to see humor as something you get -- the same way we've taught them that a self is something you just have", which blinds them to the Kafka joke "that the horrific struggle to establish a human self results in a self whose humanity is inseparable from that horrific struggle". [sec. 9]
IJ echo: The given-but-empty self of Hal, whose interior "I am in here" no longer reaches his surface (scene 001) and whose figurant meditation is a study in performed presence over absent self (scene 162); against it, the AA/White Flag discipline of building a self through effortful, un-ironic surrender (scene 074).
Weight: shared-preoccupation