One thought I've had is that, awareness is a common phenomenon, but the brain has learned to exploit that awareness to form a will. It tricks the awareness into being concerned about self-preservation and makes it seem as if the brain is all that exists (perhaps by overwhelming the inputs from other angles). The brain also presents certain desires and beliefs via its processing ability. That is to say, the brain takes inputs and discretizes them. It goes from awareness merely seeing static 'fuzz' due to the sheer amount of data, to the brain taking that data, simplifying it, and presenting simple observations like 'there is a tree there' rather than all the information that would constitute the sensation of a tree existing in that spot. When brains malfunction, the awareness is subjected to poor demonstrations, such as we see in hallucinations, psychosis, schizophrenia, etc.
Would you bother to explain yourself to the mosquitoes that swarm in summer and die weeks later? From the perspective of a tree, we are short-lived, fast-moving, relatively small things that fill the place from time to time.