4 Matrix Tips for Knowing Thyself

In the movie The Matrix, “Temet Nosce” hangs on the wall in the Oracle’s kitchen. She says it’s Latin for “Know Thyself,” and it’s what Neo has to do save his mentor’s life, become the One, and save his own.

It’s what you need to do to, if you want to live a life of purpose, and if you want to respond to your life, rather than react.

Knowing thyself — it is a pickle. But it’s possible. And the Wachowski brothers laid at least four clues for you to follow:

1. The Matrix cannot tell you who you are

Neo: “I have these memories from my entire life, but… none of them really happened. What does that mean?”

Trinity: “That the Matrix cannot tell you who you are.”

The Matrix is the system you were born into. It can be your bondage, or your chrysalis.

But that system is there. That system is culture.

It will try to convince you of who you are, how you should be making a living — that you should be “making a living.”

It will try to tell you what’s right and what’s wrong. It will tell you what to believe, whether it’s dysfunctional or not.

But deep down, culture is a human construct — it cannot tell you who you are.

2. Don’t think you are, know you are

Morpheus: “What are you waiting for? You’re faster than this. Don’t think you are, know you are. Come on. Stop trying to hit me and hit me!”

To believe in yourself, you have to know in yourself.

If you don’t know that you can succeed, you’ll let fear, doubt, and disbelief decide for you.

To be successful, you need to see yourself succeed; you need to feel it.

3. Walk the path

Morpheus: “Neo, sooner or later you’re going to realize, just as I did, there’s a difference between knowing the path, and walking the path.”

You won’t know your path until you walk it. It may seem like a good idea to get a new job or end a relationship. You may be able to come up with all sorts of rationalizations as to why and how and when.

But none of that matters if you don’t know what you really want, what you really need, and why. If you can’t feel it, then “knowing” it does you no good.

Because once you do walk the path, it may not be what you expected — what you planned for on lined paper with neat handwriting, dated and signed.

Your life life is not meant to be mapped out based on what your rational mind thinks it comprehends today. Your life is meant be experienced, to be felt, to be lived.

4. There is no spoon

Spoon boy: “Do not try and bend the spoon. That’s impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth… there is no spoon. Then you’ll see, it is not the spoon that bends. It is only yourself.”

To truly know yourself, you must see yourself in all people, all things. It’s when you stop looking, when you doubt a connection is there — that you stop learning about yourself, and who you can be.

When something happens to you in life, you always have a choice. You either respond or you react. You either connect or you dissasociate. You either integrate or you resist. You take the red pill or the blue pill. You move on or get stuck.

When you see the problem as being “out there,” you forget to look “in here” — where it matters, where it counts.

Because you can’t always change what’s going on around you. But you can change what’s going on within, by making peace with your Ego, so that you have a chance to delve deeper into your multidimensional self.