Temet Nosce

The Oracle pointed at the signboard above her door, and asked Neo,

"You know what that means? It's Latin. Means 'know thyself'"



Just as Neo learnt to know himself and what being The One means through the course of the Matrix trilogy, I too recently found out a little bit more about myself, through the events mentioned in this post.

I didn't feel compelled to blog about this initially, but seeing how a particular misrepresentation in Angie's entry (I think she was too far from the action to have observed everything accurately) might have led quite a number of readers of this blog to give me more credit than I am due (Ernest, sorry to disappoint you), I do feel somewhat obliged to :

(1) set the record straight
(2) make my confessions
(3) document the self-discoveries I mentioned earlier, which are new revelations even to myself

Revelation #1 - I still remember morse code

It started shouting "Fuck you! Fuck you!" and then "You Chinese all stoopeed!!" when a couple of bystanders approached It in a futile attempt to reason with him. I was alone in my car (Angie and Jae had already gotten off the car, thankfully) and decided to reply to Its outburst with the help of my horn. The message was:

.._. .._ _._. _._

It heard me, headed to me and demanded "WHAT?? WHAT WAS THAT??!"

Oh, It didn't know morse code, I see. So I educated It lor.


Revelation #2 - I need to work on my spit

When It slapped my car's side window and walked away, that was when I first felt the anger rose within me and the urge to lash out. I was half out of my car when the nice uncle (the one pictured in Angie's entry. I assumed he works at the nearby restaurant) stopped me. He said to me

"忍着点，忍着点。我们都有看到。这完全是他不对。他这种人，会有人对付他的。"

I took a deep breath and nodded. Uncle was right. I stayed inside my car.

When It came back to my window (after my morse code demonstration),spat on my window and stormed back to his truck, the restraints from Uncle could no longer stop me, nor contain my now insatiable anger. I got out of the car and walked across to It's vehicle (which was now making a multiple-point turn out of the carpark entrance/exit), tapped on his window, and I returned the favour.

Well, almost.

It was what I'd call 雷声大，雨点小 - Loud thunder but little raindrops. Literally.

Apparently such things need practice to perfect.


Revelation #3 - I can normalise pretty quickly

Now if this same incident had happened a year or more ago, I know I'd still be shaking with anger even after an entire week. I'd have relived and replayed the incident in my mind, over and over and over, and then refueling the hatred so it didn't go away for a long, long time.

What surprised me (and still does, now) was the fact that barely 10 minutes after leaving the scene, when we'd adjourned to a nearby coffee shop, I found myself no longer feeling that deep-seated anger that had consumed me just a while ago. It was something that I had previously never experienced and therefore totally did not expect. The anger was completely dissipated. I remember observing my state of mind in great amusement, as I shared my plate of 烧肉面 with Jae. Well, I wouldn't use the word "tranquil" cos I'm no meditating monk....but it was really calm. I was hardly even thinking about that event anymore, and I actually enjoyed my roast pork noodles, as well as feeding them to Jae, very much. I shared this discovery with Angie as I munched on the roast pork. She replied

"That's very good. Hope you can channel this emotion the next time something like this happens."

Yes, I do hope so too...though truth be told, I'd rather avoid such incidents altogether in the future, please~!