Inner peace

What is the purpose of life? I've been trying to find a meaningful conclusion. Biology and evolution say it is to pass on our genes, but to a conscious person, or me at least, it seems unfulfilling. Einstein said, "only a life lived for others is a life worth living". Although that was my attempted philosophy, it is sometimes difficult to maintain when I may seem to be bent over backwards with my hands tied. Consciousness and our ability to experience events make us agents of purpose. We devise plans, create agendas, create structures. We anticipate the future to be prepared for the worst. But when we are in comfort and have the surplus to anticipate even further, we sometimes approach the anticipation of death.

To me in the past, death seems to discredit all one's achievements, and I find it hard to battle against the idea of cashing out early. Even so, the pain that is attached to death produced enough resistance. That pain that would be inflicted upon myself, but more importantly, everyone that knows me. After I reasoned out the possibility of hell, the argument against death falls onto and is supported solidly by human connections. (The failure of one node in the network of connections would cause a cascade of circuit failures, and the effects would be multiplied)

Time keeps ticking, and we, as humans within society, each relay one signal after the other. The idea of determinism degrades one's decisions down to chemical reactions. Believing in such a concept leaves us, the agent of the chemical reactions, hopeless and stripped of meaning.

Backtrack

The problem to my past philosophy is that I'm exploring a topic with a dead-end. But "what's happened, happened. Which is an expression of faith in the mechanics of the world, not an excuse to do nothing." (Tenet) Determinism is a way to describe the mechanics of the world, and it is how it is. Technoblade once said, "What do you do after you prove that there's no free will? You go and have a party celebrating the achievement".  The world is running its own course, and understanding it gives us perspective, nothing much more. The baseline to the purpose of life is to not die, and one can do whatever he/she wants with the time now in his/her disposal. 

Inner Peace

This perspective of determinism tells the workings of the world, and it gives reasons to displaced events. It is to support that viewpoint of: "There is just news, there's no good or bad"2. While we might have reels of documentation of the world, and we judge events base on our understanding, they all are just our best attempt1. Streamlining our efforts and doing our best, to some, is the core of living. As events come and go, our action is to prevent reoccurrences of undesirable events and pave way for a better future. Noting mistakes and asserting force on resistances. The mental energy we invest in is the currency for progress and improvement, and our brain is the printer of this currency as we focus on tasks that are expensive. Mental energy is the solution to resistance, and while my brain might often succumb to resistance, it is just to know that the answer was always the need for that mental energy.

Just keep hammering at it--

1: Oogway also said, "You must let go the illusion of control". While I believe there is some truth to it, and some things are indeed useless and distracting to control, there are still things that we should control, and the quote is not with the full context. There is a balance between the two. duh, I'm stupid... anyways.

2: There is bad news. but only when there is a bad reactive decision. If one response to an event is negative, then that event has a negative impact. And to make events positive, to me at least, we must understand it and learn from it (to our absolute best ability).

This post makes no literary sense. Am I getting worse at writing, or is it just the lack of vocabulary for the topic? The sentences I type does not seem to connect together. eee. And, it is a fact that I am getting awaringly over-confident. I wasn't going to write this post, but I wanted to write a post.

I now know that inner peace is partially just stoicism. But the thing is that I understood it before I knew about stoicism, and I want to give myself some credit :).

I've heard other young people say, why should we respect the old? And the answer is that although we have more facts/knowledge than some of the more elder, the elder experienced more. The things that I have figured out in this post have already been figured by those older that may not know all the skills I know. It is the experience they have, and the understanding of life they possess. 

25 Reasons Why

Whenever someone approaches me with a bad idea and want my help with it, I ask them to provide 10 reasons to why they want to pursue it. The intention is to justify that idea either way: to solidify or dismantle it. Although this is an adequate way to evaluate efforts, it had always been a double standard that I impose, in that I don't do this to myself. And even when I do, I do so very loosely. But status quo are meant to be broken, so here I am after being deferred by MIT.

This is not unexpected, but there was such a concrete feeling of hope before MIT release their decisions. Things in the past set anchors, and there are little to no ways to revert those anchor points. What I can do now is to see what directions I had taken in the past, and learn which directions to avoid in the future.

I had re-read my blog for at least 25 times for the last 4 months, and it is only fair that I provide 25 reasons why I wasn't prolific enough. And as you can't tell from the introductory paragraphs, this post is going to be cringe. If you still want to open this paradora box of mine, you can select some text on the page and click ctrl+A and see the list.

I'm aware that I drew this a while back, but I'm
out of artworks again :(

1. Not having "outsourced credibility", of not winning competitions or high scores on standardized tests
2. not being social enough, of not joining clubs, contributing as a group
3. Displaced confidence, of believing that I can trust in my introverted ways
4. not being a leader, of succumbing to what peers suggest
5. not asserting my viewpoint (when I see things going south, I don't speak up, I just let things play out) [Because sometimes it is me that is wrong, and the situation was actually going perfectly north without any problems]
6. distractions; although these distractions made me more social, it was not the most effective way
7. second-guessing what others think of me; although this normally result in self-deprecation, for me, I became a little too confident
8. ~maybe, allowing myself to enter "dream state"; this one is vague, only I know what it means
9. too focused on internal worth; Although I think I am somewhat competent, it is within my thoughts, and not in regards to my outputs
10. not enough competition; I have concluded that competition is bad, but it doesn't rule out the overpowering energy one can assert on tasks
11. not taking action; although I code relatively a lot, for the previous half a year, I have been trying to identify problems instead
12. not adjust to society's standard; it's no use being Einstein, if your discoveries and inventions only exists in your head. There's need to display, humans are social animals
13. ~maybe, speedstor | 0x(2)12192259; ?of ambition?
14. being too deterministic; As much as I admire Meursault, he ends up in prison, not in MIT. 
15. being too "elevated"; While not caring and living by what I need is quite nice, there is a lack of motivation in result. I know I money is just a construct, I know what my scores represent in the long run, I know what being employed means in the long run. But applying those understanding in high-school life is ineffective.
16. not defining a short-term purpose; yeah, saving humanity is nice, but that will not give you a single molecule of endorphin within your whole lifetime
17. criticizing others in meaningless ways; yeah, others don't get the big picture, of how one sentence said aloud can change the course of history, but what's the use seeing that far into the future, what the hell, me?
18. too much abstraction in my thinking; Although simplifying what worked into temporary "facts" is helpful in thinking in the big picture, those "facts" aren't facts, but only hollow structures
19. are my priorities scuffed? ; I put writing an irresistible blog post topic over anything in life. I justify that it is adjusting my thinking, which has a multiplying effect. But as a student, shouldn't "grades" be the first priority
20. headless confidence; "aim for the stars, you will at least land on the moon", but am I aiming too high
21. hobbies; can i really justify playing basketball everyday because it's healthy, and saxophone because "music is what makes us human"?
22. youtube; everything special about me somewhat originate from youtube; coding, basketball, revisiting saxophone, my love for computer, music, etc. But am I watching it too much?
23. not reading enough; I only really read during March to June each year. But reading is like the boost pads in games, and I am actively dodging them. Reading is the single fastest way to improve, and I am not reading enough.
24. allowing laziness; when I seemingly have "too much" to do, instead of trying my hardest to fit everything in, I choose things to be lazy on, and bulk my attention on my priorities
25. comparing myself with "gods"; Listening to George Hotz and thinking "I can relate" may be the most arrogant thing ever. I'm one-a-thousandth of him, and while others maybe one-a-three-thousandth of him, it does not mean I am anywhere near him. He coded for ~30 years, while I coded for 3. I need to know my place.

I still have much much more to learn, and I always forget that. I am relatively professional at my areas, but the key word is "relatively". Adjust the focus just a little bit out, and I'm below average. I must push the gas pedal a little harder.

Narcissism - Displaced confidence

Where am I? In that, the question is how competent am I really? I am aware of all the effects I have contributed, both the positive and negative, and part of me is content. I have been trying to find pieces of puzzles that would define the purpose of living, and although I have found many reasons against the end, I have not found many compelling reasons for the contrary. Not having enough sleep although has its effect, was not the core of the problem. I lack a purpose and a goal to look towards. The purpose that I have derived for myself was once fulfilled with short-term contributions and distractions, but those outlets have been decreasing in quantity, and I've derailed. Without a purpose, I've been caring less about the consequences, and have ignored structures that were previously in place. I have been feeling instead of doing. Dropping agendas, while disappointing masses. Lifting hopes, just to drop them from a higher place. For all the positives, it also each attaches with a counter. I had hidden behind my cult of personality, and people all around have bought into it. Some are more aware than the others, but they are supporting a hollow Trojan horse that will not deliver. I understand the trend of mine, and I agree, but momentum isn't the same across all mediums. Zoom in, and the reality sinks in. I'm one of the past fails, do what you will. Without a purpose, I focus on my past, and I am content. Re-reading and re-reading, looking into the mirror with that became-hollow structure. I'm derailed, and I'm not the one, but nor can I communicate. For all that I said, I've became an audience of my own. Thinking I'm pressing skip, while I'm just ignoring the truth. I have achieved some, and part of me is content. I see hints of my doings, and part of me is content. See hints of my toxicity, but part of me relent. "Not Today", I agree. Find a better one, I've already did. Welcome, "Anathema", or so an ever tense pump.

Beauty I see, but better off without me.

"No one plan to lose"1, and I have surely laid out the plan for my victory. I have my ceremony all figured out weeks before the results are out. Now that the answer is a week away, my success seem slim.

1: im_a_squid_kid

I just don't have an answer

p6n9kNhzKC+wlAk46AlOoA==

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Not meant to be solved; you can try, but gl

Making a case - COVID-19 - the unpopular opinion

*Comments in hindsight: While I still agree with what I have written, a new perspective I am considering is "We don't trade lives, captain". While deciding both ways against the virus is, to a certain extent, playing God. Not giving up on any individual no matter the cost is a commendable action, not that I have any credibility. (just sharing my thoughts)

"Better to be safe than sorry", I think this mindset sums up a lot about the forefront of our society. Through our experience with disasters and genocides, we have developed caution and counter-measures to deal with potential accidents. These measures that aim to prevent recurrences include airport security, buildings' resistance to natural disasters, and lately, the topic of this post, quarantine. The former two listed are done to prevent the 1% or even 0.1%, and we strive to use them to provide people as much safety as we possibly can. And while saving any human life is worth a million, practicalists such as Elon Musk are less concerned about that 1%, and instead are more interested in multiplying the current state by 2 or 3 times. Elon Musk had famously addressed the artificially boosted fatality of the Coronavirus, and while he still thinks social distancing is essential in lowering the risks, he believes that it should not come at the cost of disrupting the economy.

The Dorment Problem

We all understand the danger of a virus experiencing exponential growth, but there might be more demanding issues that we may have overlooked. Our society, and specifically the US, have built a store of surplus through the years, and without dealing with the specifics, have been relying upon it lately. The situation of the Coronavirus only exacerbated our1 reliance upon surpluses as governments hand out checks to keep the cycle of the economy afloat. While society and the economy seem to keep on running, throwing money at the problem is only a temporary solution. Problems of manufacturing cannot be solved by legislating the movement of money, and there needs to be practical work for a meaningful output. Our industry as a whole is not yet totally replaced by robots, and labor is still being used. The food that we have access to are all processed at different levels, and as long as there were people needed for the processing before, someone has to do that processing now. The need for labor cannot be solved through the dollar, and work cannot be replaced by money alone. The effects of the lockdown, although are already showing, are still not in full effect. Normally, there are delays between the situation and its observable outcome. But even so, the price of food had already shown its initial blow: “The index price of fresh vegetables is now predicted to increase between 2.0 and 3.0 percent in 2020… Meat is now predicted to increase in price between 7.0 and 8.0 percent in 2020” (USDA). The lack of labor for processing food is imminent, and continued quarantine at the same degree could be seen as detrimental. As modern societies, we have our own stock of surplus as said before, but surpluses are finite and could be used up. If no adequate actions are taken, the situation now is heading toward a food shortage.

Our economy is still not run entirely by robots, and the lack of labor due to lockdown is the source of the problem. To prove my point, experts have said that the bottleneck to food unavailability is in the processing and not in the production (which had already been heavily automated): “Food prices are rising not because we don’t have enough food, but mainly due to the fact that the agri-food supply chain is currently unable to deliver when and where food is needed due to the shortage of labor, particularly at farm level” (TODAY). Instead of bulk selling food to restaurants with little packaging, the small portions that are needed to be separated into for individual consumers takes labor, and people are needed to chop up the meat into packets. Lockdown and too severe levels of quarantine are detrimental and unsustainable. We shouldn’t need to do an experiment in which we know the outcome. And if the increasing food prices is not a good enough indication, logic should convince: someone has to be doing the labor that we had relied on previously.

The Dilemma

This all is the dilemma of saving every person we possibly can from the virus or sustaining our economy. While the answer to the problem seems straightforward: save the human lives that are each so precious, we cannot overlook the effects of not tending our economy. Economic depression has the potential to leave mass amounts of people with empty stomachs and be evicted from their homes. To make matters worse, these effects have already been showing in our society currently, and people are seriously suffering from unemployment (low living standards, being evicted). As we are keeping the number of corona infections low, we are putting others in suffering. While we are saving lives relating to covid, we are putting 11M people4 out of jobs. And if we do not reopen the economy, the effects will only worsen.

The US government is advising homeowners to not evict their tenants, the US government is sending money to citizens, the US government is bailing out businesses to stimulate the economy. All the actions by the US are short-term fixes, and they are spending more and more money while receiving less tax. While the US government is definitely confident that their manipulation of money would not stimulate inflation, and I totally believe in their ability2, there is the reality of the shrink in the supply of goods. And as supply shrinks, the price would go up despite not having inflation, it is basic economics: rare things cost more. Goods don't exist without people making them, and not reasserting the labor force is, I cannot stress enough, extremely detrimental. If we could accept that the economy has to restart at one point, then we should evaluate what effects it would bring if we do reopen.

Re-evaluating the Mortality rate of COVID-19

Yes, 240,000 deaths3 is unfathomable, and no words can communicate the degree of spite for deaths at this magnitude. But we have to understand the number being presented, we cannot be swayed by numbers alone. There were 2,839,205 deaths in 2018, and while that number is soul-crushing, it does not mean much when out of context. As hard as it is, we have to look at the reported numbers in context.

The first context we have to count in is what COVID deaths are tied with other causes. We have to consider whether the people already affected are representative of the current population. Out of the 240,000 deaths, 109,000 are also caused by Pneumonia which can be life-threatening on its own. The Coronavirus is a catalyst to those deaths and has its own effect, but the difficult question to ask is whether the mass population of the US is with Pneumonia. After that, the subsequent question would be how about the other 131,000 COVID deaths. And because of the inaccuracy of data, numbers for COVID deaths with COVID as not the underlying cause ranges from 7.8% to 28.8% (CEBM), meaning these lives are likely to pass away with or without COVID. There are limits in data, but the limited conclusion is that in the condition of partial lockdown, COVID had been a catalyst in destroying health for 240,000 people, and that is out of 13M that got COVID. And that 13M is out of a population of 331M. This uncertainty in numbers is added upon the faulty recording of data. According to the CDC, COVID deaths contributing to the numbers are determined “with or without laboratory confirmation”. Putting into context, it is uncertain that COVID deaths do have COVID. Part of the number of COVID deaths can be counted just because someone has symptoms of COVID, which are fever, cough, fatigue, etc. These are common symptoms across most sicknesses, and counting COVID deaths because of symptoms that might originate from non-COVID only adds to the uncertainty in the data. Given the numbers, one of the last questions is what is the bottom line. The controversial statement is that COVID will become something similar to cancer, but only contagious. To throw numbers like a heartless animal again, there are 609,640 cancer deaths in 2018 (cancer.org). Death is part of life, and while we do our best to avoid it, it is undeniably eventually unavoidable. The level of lethality of COVID-19 is uncertain, and the data is in all sorts of ways influenced by a lot of factors that make it applicable or non-applicable to the mass population. And while there is uncertainty in the fatality of COVID-19, there is a concrete and imminent problem in the economy. The 240,000 deaths with some level of uncertainty are put against the 11M who have lost jobs and partially have faced eviction. I think the numbers at least ask for a reconsideration for some degree of reopening the economy.

Our Supposed Action

What we should do is what everyone is arguing about, but let's lay down the undisputable, and state-wide testing is not one of the musts. Our first course of action should be getting more reliable data, and classifying COVID death without laboratory equipment cannot be tolerated. As we are racing for a vaccine, we do not even know about the full nature of the virus itself. And testing although is desirable to be rapid, cannot generate both false-positive and false-negative results. You are not supposed to be able to answer a yes-no question both wrongly positive and wrongly negative, that is like saying “it could be yes, but it also could be no”. No matter how rapid the test is, it is useless if it is in no degree certain. You can have one or the other: false-positive or false-negative, and counter-measures can be taken, but not both at the same time.

And whether to reopen the economy should not be ruled out of the window. Without reopening the economy, food prices will only get higher and higher, and rent will only be continued being pushed off. There should at least be a serious consideration to reopening the economy. And of course, with more reliable data for COVID-19, we would be able to decide with much more certainty. Although the numbers are all skewed and misrepresented, for now, we are suppressing a questionable 240,000 deaths for 11M unemployed. And if this post hasn't convinced you of the idea of reopening the economy more, at least I have made you reconsider it. While the exponential growth of the virus is bad, the ever-increasing food prices and unpaid rent might be equally deadly. If we act too late, we might suffer the consequences of both.

1: I’m not American, but for the sake of fluency, I will use “our”

2: If there’s inflation, I would be positive that it isn’t because of the printing of money by the US

3: This number is in the US alone, at the time of writing, which is 11/27. The “precise” number is 240,213

4: 331,000,000[US population] x (6.9%[oct unemployment] - 3.5%[feb unemployment]) = 11,254,000 (statista.com)

Sleep!

I want to write like Joan Didion and write each sentence with intent, but I still remembered how much friction it puts on writing and my past learning of "write bad". This desire might be stored in the back of my subconscious, but I doubt my ability to address this desire of mine anytime soon. Over the last 2 weeks, I have noticed my inefficiency in daily work. While I had just noticed it now, it is more so of a continuing phenomenon since July, since the second half of my summer vacation. The only correlation I can draw to my inefficiency is my lack of sleep. Because of my madman attitude on finishing projects despite the friction during summer, I had imposed a lot of arbitrary deadlines that although are perfectly feasible, disregarded my well-being and relaxation. Throughout the past 3 months, sleep had been the missing piece of the formula to being able that I overlooked as the effects took time to settle in.

Intentional sleep is a weird term, and I use it to describe sleep that you allowed yourself to have. For me, intentional sleep had become a luxury since my developed loathe for sleep. During the summer vacation, I prevent myself from falling asleep for as long as possible, and most of my sleep is unintentional, and they start with me not being able to hold on to consciousness. Whenever I drift off to sleep and unintentionally slept, I would feel bad as it was replacing my original schedule of finishing a part of a program. To me at the time, sleep was an obstacle and presents itself as a time-wasting activity. Since then, being able to lie in bed and await sleep to overtake consciousness is the most satisfying thing on Earth. Insomnia to others is an annoyance, but to me is a luxury. When I have a hard time going to sleep, I get to stare into my pitch-black room, empty my mind, do nothing, and just enter into "Slowtown".

A picture for my website that I didn't have time to color in

Quality sleep is another thing I overlooked. Overwhelmed with my ambitious goals that hinder my ability more than it motivates, during the summer, I so often sleep by the numbers: "I haven't slept a single second last night, so I just need 6 hours today", "It takes 11 days of bad sleep to hallucinate, and I have slept 3 hours avg. for the last 4 days, I can still fight for one more night before having an 8-hour sleep day". It all becomes worse when I account for how most of my sleep is with the lights on as I hadn't intended for it (When I sleep with the lights on, I wake up feeling as tired as I was before). There is such a chaotic cycle that I subscribed to, and honestly, apart from tiredness, I was not suffering any consequences for the first month.

Sleep deprivation had been an old friend of mine since childhood, and I have been accustomed and adapted to it. When I was around 10, the game addict in me drove me to keep myself awake till one o'clock at night to bypass my parent's ban from computers. When I went to Shanghai, my dedication to turn in homework I deemed worthy of submission drove me to work till 2 past midnight regularly. Stretching my limits, it had become a game for me to not mention my 0-sleep night the next day despite my hallucinating inside. And even after consecutive sleepless nights, I functioned normally on the outside and in regards to my outputs. But now, my habit of trying to detach myself from reality broke the bottom line.

Being well accustomed to sleep deprivation, I always understood its most significant effect of decreased efficiency. I am aware of that infamous inability to focus on a task1, but I had always been able to justify it. On any particular day, getting 8 more hours than normal is a 50% increase in time available, and tiredness (inability to focus) only takes away ~10-20%. In past situations, the worst net total is still a 20% increase, and I naturally took the trade. For the past 3 months, what I have not accounted for is the accumulation of being tired. From what I have experienced, it seems to me that tiredness cannot be rid of just because I had taken 3 days to become sleeping beauty. I knew this in the past, but I had only understood that it is not a 1:1 amending process when trying to catch up on sleep. But not only is catching up on sleep not with a direct ratio, it is only a "pain-reliever" in that it only fixes tiredness in the short-term.  

Since last summer, I have been spending more time on tasks, but ironically, have been getting less done. I was stretching my limits too much. I was doing less and less while also having less and less sleep. As tasks pile on and their significance increase, my ability to receive them gradually and chaotically decreases. Leveraging sleep throughout my life had been a godsend, and it is integral to my current personality and what I have achieved. The extra time I have gained had helped me combat my late start in academics, expanded my interest2, and made me diverse in my skillset3. But leveraging on it too much4 had proven to be extremely detrimental to my ability, and the math that had always justified sleep deprivation becomes non-applicable in extreme conditions. 

While I haven't connected this issue to my past blog posts here, everything I have been experiencing is becoming more and more interconnected. It overwhelms me as the cause and effect of every little detail becomes more and more apparent. Lately, I am strung to lyrics by Tyler Joseph (, relating to them with extremely altered meanings):

I don't know why I just feel I'm better off

Stayin' in the same room I was born in

I look outside and see a whole world better off

Without me in it tryin' to transform it

Oh he is falling

And though he knows it's not

The world looks down and frowns.

Get up Johnny boy, get up Johnny boy

Hey, hey, wouldn't it be great, great,

If we could just lay down and wake up in Slowtown,

I can't take them on my own, my own

Oh, I'm not the one you know, you know

I have killed a man and all I know

Is I am on the run and go

1: When you are sleep deprived, it is super super easy to find yourself on useless things, for me it's youtube. Because of my constant tiredness, youtube and relaxation seeps in during the daytime, and nighttime was able to impose enough tension and limitation for me to do efficient work. And because of this attribute for nighttimes, I fell in love with doing work at night, sometimes even trying to eliminate light during the daytime to get myself to work. Sleep that originally put into midnight is replaced by programming, and I thought my body could handle it, and in fact, it did handle for the duration of the summer vacation. 

2: Although I shouldn't be proud of this, I like to always hide at least one side of me or an interest of mine from everyone*. (and that includes my parents... umm..... lol, I should choose my words more wisely in a blog that only my parents read.... ummm..... My blog is a pandora box, it's not the creator's fault that the pandora is opened, it is the people's own choice to do it. I'm not dissing anyone, just that I can type what I want :)  , oh no.....)

3: While some might argue that being a specialist is better than being sub-par at a number of things, I would say there are benefits to both.  

4: Same thing with deadlines. I really cannot leverage on deadlines that much. [facepalm with depressed face and shaking head] I am not going to write a blog post about it because it is a known fact, and people don't need to know my justification for procrastination, nor do I have the need to ventilate about it.

I finished the redesign of my website. Now, I cross
my fingers for the wish of having colleges see it and be impressed by it

Riddles and abstracts

To interact with my "riddles", paste the decoded text below, thank you.

In some cases, if the "riddle" does not have sensible instructions, the poem is the solution itself. So just copy the whole poem into the text area and submit. 

     Sorry for the inconvenience. 

Most of it isn’t coded yet, so just check back in a couple weeks

Attention to Detail vs. Shortcuts

Through my attempts at "enlightenment" and trying to understand the world, I came to an insight where because objects of our creation are only the combination of smaller objects, the hard-work could be saved when one understands the essentials of the desired product. An essay could be hashed out without attention to detail if the right words are used. There are only so many ways to convey an idea and only so many words you could use. Describing a character's emotion differs little in conditions of varying detail: "His heart tinkles" and "He felt something special" have little change, and I thought I could cheat the system by just consciously assuming the desired output. While you could come to the quality of the first one by actually paying attention and deliberately trying, you could also arrive to it just by strategically using it, skipping the effort (it is just words at the end of the day). Attention to detail takes time and effort, while my fantasized method takes less, saving time for my coding, drawing, etc. But this theory of mine is false, and it took me 2 months to realize. 

Evidence

Only if I knew. Skipping the effort is not a possible reality, at least for me. The last 3 scores entered into my grade book proves so. 

Just the passing Wednesday, I took a math test on course material I already learned 2 years ago, and I skipped the efforts of reviewing as I was confident in my abilities. But it is my lack of heart and attention that led to careless mistakes as a result. During the test, I was aware of my lack of review, so I quadruple checked (not exaggerating) my answers upon submission. My answers turned out to be perfect, but I skipped over the conventions that the teacher wanted. This is arguably unavoidable without heart and attention put into the subject class. My hypothesis of effectively skipping the effort was rejected. But I persisted, I thought it was the teacher's fault of not announcing and explaining his intentions beforehand.

But examples of the failure in my shortcuts keep resurfacing. A similar thing happened when I took a test in Biology. I was once again confident in my abilities as I understood the core concepts of the chapter quite well in my own assessment. I romanticized my ability to translate my understanding into words. As a result, I did badly on the test. Even with hindsight, I would argue that I understood everything on the test perfectly, but it is once again my unfamiliarity with the conventions and words that made my downfall. My shortcut was to purely use my understanding to deal with the test, and it failed in response to my lack of attention to detail. I skipped over essential parts and vocabs that, with effort, I would not have otherwise. 

The final nail in the coffin is the submission of my English homework. This relates to the example I gave in the introduction, where my words reflected the lack of heart and effort in my answers. I thought with all the blog posts I have written and all the constantly debating inner-dialogues within my head, my literacy would excel. But at the end of the day, it still comes true again that my lack of attention resulted in grammar mistakes and misused words. 

Conclusion

My belief in shortcuts comes from how professionals could churn out masterpieces with little effort. I thought the magical brilliance I somehow displayed last year was an indication that I have achieved a level that I am not in. My "brilliance" was the product of my hard work and not because of some genius attribute of mine. I fell down into this rabbit hole of using confidence to mask my shortcomings, and it had finally hit rock bottom. Things are always better late than never, and this concludes the enjoyment of the time I "saved" for the last 2 months. I have to go back to my last year's self (effort-wise) and do my due diligence. And might I add that from my experience of last year, it truly feels like torture1 to work with that much effort. The only thing merry about it was the looking back of the products of my efforts, and I guess I have no choice but to go back into that state. While Elon Musk's efforts trump mine by light-years, he said, "I do not regret not enjoying my life (for the things [I] achieved)", and I have to follow his lead and do the things necessary.

If time could not be cheated out of existing agendas, the only way out is to occupy more of my free time, as much of a torture1 it is. The future always awaits us, and our decisions set anchors into the past. My fantasy of being unworldly efficient in my work has to come to an end, and whether I am able to resume my constant streams of effort leaves unanswered in the future.

This is a super rough sketch because it was for hw.

I guess there are still things that I could take shortcuts with,
I just have to not make it a habit. 

After a good night's sleep (~3 hours), I conclude that I just have to always have humility, no matter the situation. I guess that it was just that my programming ego took over me, cuz throughout the past year, people had 100% trust in my programming skills, however false that is.

1: Okay, it's not torture per se. It is just that I was writing this blog post 3 in the morning, and everything is dark when you are tired, lol. How torturous can high school be?

Pulse Check

A program too big without structure. I am currently programming a tcp packet builder to collect data about its efficiency. While the project is easy in itself, I haven't exercise good programming etiquette, and everything is a mess. In addition to the new environment of structure-oriented programming in contrast to the familiar object and functional programming, I am new to the language and am no more than a blind man set in a new place. I had no idea how to structure my C program to be modular, and now, my program is too big to be changed. I can only endure my way through or start over, and I would more leaning towards the former. WELP. I had an idea for a blog titled "Follow your Heart: the ups and downs". But I have to get back to work, ahh.