It's worth noticing that this is apparently the traditional far-eastern way of life; at least it was explained to me that this "realization" is a major part in traditional japanese meditation techniques.
It's also noteworthy that japanese people typically refer to themselves by their name, i.e. I would say "gandalf ate noodles yesterday" instead of "I ate noodles yesterday". I believe this stems from the idea that you look at yourself from the outside, just like you would look at anybody else. This is also the root cause for why there's traditionally such a strong "group think" in far-eastern countries. Because they differentiate way less between themselves and others, and often apply the "group perspective" to things, instead of the "individual perspective".