my exams are over and just like i had feared, it was indeed a math paper. no kid. it was so math-heavy that even my friends commented that they had sat for the wrong paper for an econs major. i mean - usually i'd be the only one complaining about papers having too much math. if everyone else is also, then certainly something went wrong.

well so what do we have here! a free young man with nothing better to do and all the time in the world, infused with a great mood for blogging. this post will go on for hours. i just have this feeling. so lets begin this journey through my mind, if you would please.

don't carry on if you don't have the time by the way. i fear that what's going to appear below would seem nonsensical to you, and its going to take some time to go through all of it. sometimes i write a lot because i have a bad memory, and i enjoy reading my old posts, and having recollections of the past, understanding myself better. i don't know. i have many questions. if you have anything to enlighten me please go ahead. you can even tell me that i should see a doctor. just don't hit me.

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well at the rate that im thinking about my existence, and harbouring thoughts that - instead of producing answers to - generate even more thoughts, coupled with my poor intellect really could have driven me insane, if there wasn't things that made me feel...real. i admit, i really feel that what im experiencing is unreal at times. i know its weird to hear such a thing from me, but i think i would be insane given any of these three conditions :

1)I am introverted, i shy away from real-life communications,

2)I go into solitude confinement for a month, or if i had no family and friends

3)everyone around me thinks about the things i do, and add complications to them without answering anything

both of which would make life so unreal that i would question my existence and the reality of my experiences, (sense of sight, touch etc.) every two seconds.

which makes me just wanna really thank my friends and loved ones for making life seem real for me. i really strongly believe that i could have been insane without all of the people around me. sometimes i think that i've lost control of my thoughts.

it all started when i enrolled in philosophy modules. im sure. i knew i was born to be curious. when i was like primary 3 maybe, i remember reading in a charlie chaplin's encyclopedia that fire needs oxygen, so i asked my teacher how does the sun burn in outer space when there's no oxygen there. looking back, i thought i was remarkable.

somehow as i grew, the curiosity died down, maybe because there has to be something to be curious about to be curious about something. does that make sense to you? well philosophy modules (i took two, not planning to take anymore) provided a lot of 'somethings' to be curious about.

the thing about those modules is that questions are mostly left unanswered. and that made many many many bus rides become thinking sessions, mostly about just one thing - a word, or a concept. and those thoughts were mediocre. if my thought processes were an animal, it would be a turtle.

during those times i shared some thoughts with my friends in NUS, but i don't remember gaining any enlightenment in particular. i once went to ask my prof (who took both the philo mods that i read) whether there is intentionality in dreams. partially because i dream a lot, and there was a lot of discussion on dreams, consciousness, and reality. i can make like four dreams in one night and remember what i did in them.

maybe there is, don't you think? that certain things we do in dreams have some kind of intentionality in them - but my prof paused for 3 seconds and answered 'no'. when he said it, i knew it was right because a 'yes' would mean that we could control our dreams and that we are considered to be conscious while in them. actually i was hoping he said 'yes'. at that time i remember i was really struggling over whether i could actually control my dreams, and believe it or not, i did try. but i couldn't tell if i could. see - i told you i could potentially be insane.

sometimes i don't know...what i could have been. i mean, i am a student in NUS. sometimes i feel proud of it, but a lot of times i think of what have i really done to deserve this. nothing.

i really didn't think i'd have made it in here. throughout my secondary and jc life, i didn't imagine i'd be in NUS. i didn't think about what i'd do in the future, and i was lazy, i played computer games till 2am and woke up for school at 6am. i could have been a delivery man. or a store assistant. i don't look down on these jobs, but if i were to be doing those, i'd definitely be a stuck up guy looking down on myself and if i were to question my own existence in those situations, i could be insane, because there's no value left in my life to make me feel like im living.

of course, things could be different if that really happened. i don't know. i think im really lucky. i really am. anything could have happened. i have seen so many men in NS who are smart guys but they never made it past O'lvls due to family problems. bad influences. given my shaky character when i was young, everything could have gone wrong for me. i was lucky to have entered a decent secondary school. and i did recall making a hasty decision that was far from rational because i was too lazy to go through the thick booklet of the list of secondary schools. believe it or not, it was zhonghua because it was on the last page that i flipped to, and it was not too far off from sengkang where my lazy ass resided in.

i don't know man. i just feel lucky that im here. as though it takes an extraordinary combination of events, as well as the absence of harsh events that could have changed things. and with all that said you can trust that i will still not be any more hardworking than i have been when tomorrow comes.

its like i have no control over my life. its like i've always been letting Fate decide the present and the near future for me. and through these years i always convince myself that i'll be happier that way if i don't force myself too much. even now, i don't know if that's true, although i am inclined to believe that it is, because i really don't want to regret my life. i could have done many things better. but i don't want to think about it. i should not be.

i think that's a good transition to the next thought that i had on my mind today. does anybody really have control over themselves? well this thought was initiated by probably some TED talk and my thoughts of fate. both of which points to the answer 'no'. which sounds so bleak it's almost instantly depressing.

i remember it was mentioned that (correct me, if im wrong) what we we decide to eat and wear is all subconsciously influenced my the media, like advertisements and stuff. which follows that our decisions are not made by ourselves. which makes some sense. but then again, one can say that he/she decides what advertisement to subscribe to and follow, so there's still some sort of control isn't it. well, i don't know. but i think the media is making free will seem like a joke sometimes if it can make people go crazy and overhype certain stuff.

the other thing that makes me wonder about our control over our lives is fatalism. (wow. i actually wiki-ed fatalism to find that it is actually consistent with what im talking about, which is kinda cool.) yes and if you did wiki it, it has the idea that everything is pre-determined. what do you think? if everything was pre-determined, then obviously you don't have control over your lives. you may think you do, but its just an illusion. like by choosing to take a bus, (i tend to think of this because i take buses so often) my fate is sealed with the bus's fate. the bus decides when i will reach my destination, whether safely or not. i have no control over it.

oh man. this came to my mind right now. what if the entire duration of our lives is just one long bus journey? what if the free will that we think we have is the choice of where to sit or stand, which, at the end of the day, could very well be pre-determined as well? my friends call these thoughts 'mindfking yourself'. and i just did.

one reason why i believe in fatalism is because of time travel. i thought that if time travel was possible, that means the future has to already exist if we were to be able to get there. that means that it doesn't take time for the future to come into existence; instead it just exists. if every single fraction of the future exists independently of time, then our fates have been decided for us. if you don't believe that, that you got to destroy the childhood hope that time travel was possible, which is so damn hard to do, at least for me.

then again, there's a more scientific part to that, as Einstein had said that time is an illusion. i think it has something to do with 'time' being the 4th dimension. i think its very technical and im not completely confident that i know the concept behind that. if you're interested just google 'time is an illusion.'

another thing that bugged me greatly is the value of education. when i was in secondary school, i never understood how the knowledge of titration could possibly make any impact on my life in the future, knowing that i'd never ever go into chemistry. now that im in uni, i clearly understand that knowing stuff, whatever stuff it may be, and scoring well gets me a better paying job in the future.

but this sem, i once again find myself asking whether i'll ever be using all the theories that i've learnt in the future. i don't know what i'll work as, but lets say if i'd be doing some office job in the private sector, how does knowing the First Order Condition for optimal consumption make me any more productive than not knowing at all? where is the value in education?

well we can clearly see it if someone works for the government, comes up with proposals for economic policies. i've done a project in a public finance module and believe it or not, i personally think that ERP is a brilliant idea. its just pure genius. 5 paragraphs explaining the thoughts behind it would probably bore you, although an economist would probably understand. its a pity that people just wanna complain about it. i can't help it - i think they're just ignorant.

so education is impt for people working in the government. also true for professors-to-be. but the value adding ends at those two. i think most people work in the private sector and what good does a uni education really do? i really don't know because i haven't worked in an office. but i suspect that its probably possible for someone who hasn't been to a uni to be equally productive as one that has if there was a on-the-job training provided for a few months. heck, even graduates go through training.

i really forgot what was my thought process, but what i really want to come to think of is a hypothetical situation where computers and robots completely replace human capital. what's the link here? damn. i lost it. i think what i thought about is that, say, in 500 years,

people who once were able to make a living by going through an education mechanically - having no questions asked, will be phased out by the corporate sector. because robots can do exactly what they did, and profit maximising producers would only invest on robots they are potentially more cost-efficient and less error-prone than humans. the only people that can survive are those who are very rich to begin with - that they are engaged in some form of business and can invest in robots to produce stuff for them, or those very intelligent - that they are able to think more than that was ever thought of, making them more valuable assets than robots.

or maybe not because the government will take care of poor people. or maybe human labour will become so cheap after a drop in demand for them that people will still hire humans. maybe i didn't think deep enough.

ok i guess that's that. its time to sleep. let me know if you've been here and have anything to share. if not, then be happy 'cos that's what you really wanna be at the end of the day!