我 began life as a picture of a serrated battle-axe — nothing to do with selfhood. The word for 'I' borrowed the axe's sound three thousand years ago and never gave it back. Every Chinese 'me' still carries a weapon inside it.
Classical Chinese had a wardrobe of first persons — 吾, 余, 予, 朕 (the emperor's exclusive 'We') — but 我 outlasted them all. 我们 'we' is just 'me, pluralized', and 自我 'self' is where Chinese psychology vocabulary begins.
A hand gripping a battle-axe 戈 — the original armed and dangerous I.
The emperor's 朕 was so exclusive that using it as a commoner was treason; 我 was the people's pronoun, and the people won.