What Is the Self?

How do we think of ourselves? Do we perceive ourselves as separate from the people, objects and universe around us? What about us is different from the other stuff?

It seems to me (at this moment) that we work pretty hard to separate ourselves. We use our thoughts and actions to build barriers between ourselves that those around us. What are the ways we know we are alive? Love? Pain? Eating? Wanting? They are all ways of acquiring things, gathering them as proof of our own existence.

Money, possessions, friends, work, accomplishments. They are all ways to build the concept of the self. None of them are actually us, but we feel that they are valuable and necessary.

What is the self then? What happens if we take away all the constructions, the crutches that we use to assure ourselves of our existence and importance?