Your epistle reminds me of Alan Watts.

My mind is never only filled with my voice. There are so many people talking and shouting. Also, my dreams are never centered around myself but other people. I no longer exist as a self when I sleep.

A high-school English teacher, Mrs. Lee, told me of her time in Germany. She stayed with a family there and was quickly subsumed as a part of the family. The German culture was so completely contrary to American culture that when she came back to the states, she needed therapy to readjust to life under individualism and “rational self-interest,” aka consumerism.