You are not "proving" your position either, just using, as you say, "a simplistic analogy" that because we say "I" before "am" it follows that "consciousness precedes being". We are both using the imperfect tool of language to state our beliefs.

Meanwhile, hardness still does emerge from properties of huge numbers of atoms, forests have properties beyond those of their individual trees, and we humans have effects beyond those of our individual capabilities, as the current war in Ukraine demonstrates.