The Body and the "I"

    What does it mean to have no self? Surely, when I am called by my name "Keith", this is a self. So why does Buddhism talk so much about no self when there are definite labels? I think this is a serious question that I am pondering currently.
    For instance, if a person feels hungry, they feel their own distinct bodily sense. I don't feel someone else's hunger, and when someone else is eating in the room, it's not 'this body' that feels full. So in that case, is it not proper to refer to this body as me and someone else's as them? The problem is that I attribute the body to a distinct and separate self. But when I reflect on it, there isn't a separate body at all. For instance, if the body were relaly separate from the environment, there would be no need to eat or to move from one place to the other. The body would just be where this 'me' is situated, so there would not even be a need to look outward. But in fact there is an outside and an inside. So why do I limit the sense of "I" to this one single thing I call a body?
    When there is some unpleasant sensation or feeling, there is a tendency to protect the body as though it were the only thing that I can safely call the self. Even when that feeling is coming from a verbal statement, the sense of self kind of recoils into the body. I try to figure out ways for 'this body' to be protected from harm, whether real or imagined. But pain is unavoidable. In order to be social beings, there are many emotional risks. Can one make one's body immune to the emotional pains of being social?
    The paradox is that the more I try to protect 'this body'  from the perceived threats of the environment, the more suffering will be felt. This suffering takes the form of trying to anticipate or plan around every perceived danger. Such a life would be very difficult to inhabit. It would be like trying to anticipate every possible 'terrible' thing that could happen to this body. But what would happen if I did not at all identify with the body or with what others are labeling as 'me' or 'my body'? Then the way of seeing would be quite different.
     People tend to think of others as bodies. When I think of a person I know, I am imagining the familiar body that they inhabit. Recently, in the news, I see the image of the actor Hugh Jackman, and there is a big fuss over the fact that he looks much older than in his other pictures. People start to speculate whether it's a makeup job for an upcoming movie or if it is his 'real body' or if it is due to illness. It's interesting that the media really scouts for the person's 'real' body, as opposed to the body that is ravaged by illness or disease. I remember once reading about how the soul in heaven is supposed to take on the form of the body that is in its 'prime', which is often assumed to be in one's 30s. The search for the self is often the search for the body that one cherishes the most: the body that is considered the most complete, the most attractive, the most matured, and so on. It's as though this image of the body sets the standard for a person's true being.
      When someone points out that "I" made a mistake, are they pointing to me, or to their thought of my body? Normally, people talk but they are imagining the image of the person rather than seeing the person. But the true 'body' is actually a shifting form that is continually being generated. It is not even really one 'body' that holds it all together. Instead, the body is a kind of concept that is supposedly bringing together different moments in time. If there is no distinct unchanging substance called a body, does it make sense to point the finger at this "I", to say it is the source of suffering or happiness? These questions seem trivial but they are part of investigating what it means to protect the sense of self by way of the body.
        One way of dealing with criticism is to try to deflect criticism from the body that I believe is me. I might say, "I wasn't myself that day" or "I was tired", "my body hadn't been fed when I made that remark." In other words, I try to  salvage the sense of an unchanging me which is separate from all the actions. But what if there is no separate unchanging substance that I could refer to as myself? There may still be consequences to actions taken, but the body itself is part of a changing flux. Would it then make sense to limit who we think we are to this image  of the body?
       Sometimes, when I make an embarrassing mistake in front of others, I am afraid to look at myself in the mirror afterwards. But I wonder, what does the image have to do with the previous action? Why blame the image for the action? Yet the habitual way is to attach to this image of the body and say 'it' is responsible for all the behavior. Or we make reasons why "it" is not responsible. Both views are somehow very limiting, because they treat the body as the ideal locus  of action and thought. It overlooks the many conditions that go into the present moment, opting instead to separate body from environment.