I am sick of teachers telling us that we are not taking exams, of all bloody things, seriously enough. If exams are an inevitable evil, then the least any sane person can do is not to take it like a matter of life and death, which I assure you, is not too uncommon a view nowadays ( literally, I guess if you consider the number of people who have committed suicide after failing their exams ), but here they are, telling us that we are just not serious enough and that we should be more concerned, it is our exams after all, so will you please shut the hell up and pay attention like all good little boys should?

Anyway seriousness is too highly overrated in my opinion, because it is after all, a sign of drudgery, which in turn implies incomplete mastery. I have noticed that truly great authors make no attempts to write like they have got a bee stuck up their ass, and are, more often than not, amazingly lucid, readable and simple. Lightness of touch often comes with complete mastery, but if we cannot be very good at something, we should at least not pretend to be doing serious work and broadcast our ignorance for the benefit of the general populace.

Great humorists, after all, are often great thinkers, (much better than logicians and moralists would be anyway and that's often good enough) and it was G.K. Chesterton, was is not, who said that if angels could fly, it is only because they take themselves so lightly.