I was somewhat against ranting about people not blogging despite the fact that A levels are over (assumption is correct as none of the blog-owners whom I read from take H3 Econs), since my math teacher used to say, "When you point a finger at others, four more are pointing at yourself." Thus, if I didn't blog despite my A levels being over, then I would be a hypocrite. But wait, the very act of ranting against all the others who do not blog after A levels constitutes a blogging action, and thus I am immunized against the tetraretrophallanx attack. Hence, I continue.

When blogs close down and become inactive as A level approaches, one would suspect that the approach of A levels is the cause of the inactivity. However, the converse of the hypothesized cause, i.e., the end of A levels, does not reverse the trend. Blogs remain dead. It is possible that blogs have a certain natural lifespan, because the creator gets bored after too long, regardless of whether he has other important things to do. In normal times, you see blogs dying, then getting resurrected, or new people starting to blog, with no regular pattern. CT 2 come, they start dying. But unlike neopets, dying blogs do eventually become dead when nobody visits it anymore.

So will blogs resurrect after A levels? I hope so, because they are sources of entertainment. However, some blogs may die for a long long time as the creators have something (or someone) to occupy themselves with, and thus are far too busy to blog. Oh well.

I think Stephanie Sun's "ASEAN Rise" is nice.

I was feeling lethargic before the A levels were over, because there was this nagging feeling that I should study despite me not wanting to. Now that the A levels are over, I hear people making self-improvement plans, and stress starts again! This signals the end of the competition for grades, and the beginning of the competition in life. The end of A levels doesn't really feel that great after all. When we were preparing for A levels, there was an end in sight, and we could look forward to it, and expect ourselves to be truly free from our sole responsibility of study. Doesn't it seem so? Regarding anything that bugs you in a couple of years time, you are told that "It's okay, focus on your A levels first." Now that A levels has ended, it starts to dawn on me that "WTF it's just the beginning!" There are still some 60 years ahead, and the supposedly best part of life, teenage, is over. Perhaps, reminiscing the old times would make it seem more wonderful than what it truly felt like at that time, because our memories are fallible, and people prefer to share the happier moments with others. Thus, as time passes by, the bad events fade out of our memories and the happy memories get exaggerated, distorted, and reinforced. Moreover, as past events are communicated in language and not in terms of emotion and sensation, the value judgment on an event would change as we age, since the connotations of words change as we use words differently.

It is a rather scary thought that the way we alter our memories of the past implies that past can always seem like a better period than the present or future. Wouldn't it seem like life has always been getting worse as one ages? From Dan Gilbert's TEDTalk, it seems like we can rationalize our joy and pain away, such that a person who is paralyzed and a person who won the top prize in lottery would feel just as happy in a year's time (it doesn't sound convincing here, but go watch the talk, it's good). As such, even though we strive towards what we believe to be our sources of happiness, our rationalization ensures that once we get there, we'll stop being happy, and we are back to square one in terms of happiness. Happiness that we aim for is not the happiness we get.

Yet is there any source of happiness that the mind cannot rationalize away, such that we can constantly rely on it as a source of happiness despite making no actual progress? I think the answer lies in a certain part of the brain that can be triggered by an electric impulse. Sounds amazing. That person getting treated by the impulse may be rendered useless to the society as he may simply work towards the trigger, but he'll be very happy unless the people who give him to electrical impulses decide to use him as a remote controlled human. He'll probably feel like a slave to his passions instead of being a real slave who is forced to do the things he don't want to do. If you pity this guy, maybe you should pity those who are in love as well. It doesn't seem like they have a choice either.

I digress much. Therefore I win.