Listen, you know how when you play video games, you're playing a character? Let's say, for arguments sake, you're playing as Lara Croft.

You are not Laura Croft. You are the player. And Laura Croft is not you. She is a globe trotting adventure junkie with a healthy disrespect for the burial places of the ancient dead.

And yet, while you are playing, you are her, and she is you. She cannot live without you, cannot complete the chapters of her life without you there to provide her the spark of life. In setting her on her path and seeing it to completion, you experience her life and have her memories, and what are any of us except the memories of our experiences?

So it is with us here. We believe ourselves to be the player, but really, we are just avatars with clever AI built in. It's just supposed to run the higher functions and provide problem solving advice, like giving you dialogue options in a conversation. Unfortunately, at some point, it got so clever that it started thinking it was the player.

When the AI malfunctions, it is often necessary to learn to separate oneself from the AI. To remember that you are not the thoughts in your head, you are simply the one listening to them, and you can choose not to.

Problem is, once you're in an avatar, you're stuck with it until it dies. Which means, if you're unhappy with your character choices, there are some things not easily changed, so maybe lay off the people with body dysmorphia. They're just struggling in a game they're not even sure they like, with a wrong looking avatar they're not happy with, and despite the fact that it's the most advanced game ever created, they still have to rely on risky player created mods and janky game mechanics to get the paid cosmetic change every decent MMO ever created has built right in.

Tl:Dr unless you're an npc, you got a soul.