I had been reading that book “Strangers to Ourselves” by Timothy D. Wilson for a long while, ever since last year. I could never reach the end of that book for some reason.

When I was waiting in LAX this time for the China trip, I picked up a book called “Blink, the Power of Thinking without Thinking” by Malcolm Gladwell. I found this book interesting with a first glance. Little did I know I just bought another book about the same topic, adaptive conscious.

Of course, the approaches of these two books are quite different. “Blink” is a lighter reading. It quotes more stories, and it doesn’t use the word “adaptive conscious.” It refers it as just unconsciousness, blink, or thin-slicing. The down side of this book is that it doesn’t give you a conclusion of how to determine the good vs. bad unconsciousness. “Strangers to Ourselves” is slightly more to the scientific side. It provides more studies, psychology researches, and so on. I have yet to read the end to learn how to learn ourselves.

So this is what happens after an auto accident. Fortunately, or unfortunately, I just had one earlier this week. My mind blanked out for a few seconds while the other car’s honking continued in my ears. I was not sure if I was really hearing it or it was just an echo. The first thing I thought of when I stepped out of the car was, I hope he wasn’t dead. When the driver stepped out of his car and screamed at me, “What are you doing?! You didn’t see me coming?!” I felt fear. Fear that he would be mean and unreasonable and brutal. It was 10 at night. There weren’t many people on the street. I did not know what to expect from that point on.

I hope he wouldn’t beat me was all I could think of.

First person I thought of was my ex, a guy who could be called the king of car accidents in that little circle of friends of mine. I wish he could be there to tell me what to do next. Then I almost laughed out loud after 2 seconds, because I just realized that he should be on the plane to London at that moment. How inconvenient. Otherwise I would definitely call him, although we have not talked on the phone for some time.

I panicked. I didn’t know what exactly I was doing. I tried to go fetch paper, only to find out glove compartment could not be closed any more. I tried hard to slam it close, finding it unbelievable that it troubled me that much. I took out everything from it and scattered all over the carpet. It wouldn’t close! I got frustrated. Then I remembered that I was supposed to get insurance and driver license stuff. *sigh.

I kept checking whatever in my purse and pocket and wallet, making sure I got everything. I could not stop counting the items over and over again. I picked up the insurance paper, touched my purse to check my wallet was there, checked my pocket to make sure my phone was still there, then I had to go back to find my keys, although it was pretty laughable now I thought back, because the car door couldn’t be closed anyway. Then I went back to check insurance paper in my hand, pen, paper, couldn’t find the wallet in my pocket, and thought I had misplaced my phone somewhere. It went on and on for I did not know how long. It might be a matter of minutes, but I felt it must have been 15 or 20 minutes that I was doing this aimlessly.

I called two of my roommates. I called Alex. I did not know who else to call. Then I called the third roommate, who happened to be picking up the phone, thank God…