How to tell self-making from self-development: self-making is the attempt to be your own origin. 'The essence of the Oedipal complex is the project of becoming God—in Spinoza's formula, causa sui.' The person who is compulsively self-created, who cannot tolerate owing anyone anything, who must be the author of their own life from nothing — is trying to be causa sui, their own first cause. This is a denial of dependence, and dependence is the reminder of death. The tell: an allergic reaction to needing anyone.

— In our words · Source: The Denial of Death (Ernest Becker)