As a person I am a single individual. First of all this means: I live in this body. It is my first existence in the world. Everything else I do and have presupposes it.

And yet the body is not simply I.

As a person I have my body and my life. I have them the way I have other things: because I will it. My will must first move into my body.

A difference from the animal:

The animal is simply at home in its body. It has itself, but it has no right to itself. For it does not will its life. It simply lives.

The human being, by contrast, can take a stance toward his life. The animal cannot injure or kill itself. The human being can. This shows a frightening freedom. Whether he may throw his life away is a quite different question. More on this later.

Summary: I live in a body, but as a person I have it. It is mine because I will it. In this the human being differs from the animal.