weirdly wired

I am not sure if you've heard this but there is a phrase that goes like 'yeda banke peda khana'. People say that when someone smarter pretends to be stupid to get something out of a situation. The anecdotal reference behind this is if someone normal like you and me acts like a mad person or beggar in a social scenario, sitting in line with other beggars outside a hindu temple to get some charity or a free laddu. That's when you say 'yeda banke peda kha raha hai'. So, for the smarter people in general, if you know what stupidity constitutes for in a particular setup (meaning what is considered stupid for the people around you) and you know which buttons to press to get a sympathetic response from someone, you can very well use 'stupidity' as a bait to get what you want. But, the thing is, other than you, rest of the people are getting nothing out of it. Therefore, its not exactly a viable medium of exchange for the long run. You can only fool people once...

You must have heard of Platonic relationships. Its a non-sexual relationship between a man and a women, mostly spiritual in its outlook, where at least one of the partner is highly revered by the other and held in high esteem. One of the tell-tale couple to epitomize this theory has to be goddess Radha-Krishna. As long as I can remember they have always been worshiped together. Their bond is considered supreme, pious and pure despite the age difference and other short-comings because its strictly non-sexual and involves union of the souls (precisely the part majority of people don't understand). Cut to 2nd decade of the 21st century, our Indian culture is still hungover by the same ideals. Female's virginity is important before marriage. Alia Bhatt once spoke of slut shaming which means it's irrespective of the class divide in our society. Mansplaining is a real phenomenon and casual sexism (fat shaming included) at work place is widespread. Item numbers objectifying wom...

Empathy in its simplest form means 'the ability to put yourself in someones place and feel as they would'. It is different from Sympathy even though both are used collectively most of the time. 'Sympathy' is the act of showing pity on someone or feeling sorry for someone's misfortunes. It is loving someone from a distance. An act of sympathy is more like asserting the fact that 'I am doing you a favor'. Its more of a societal compulsion. You can count it under acceptable manners I guess like how relatives come to console you after there's been a death in the family. Forced and entirely useless social construct where people genuinely don't know what to say to make the family feel better as nothing can be changed. Sympathy is more like imposing yourself externally in order to help someone but 'empathy' is holding someones hand and pulling them out of an emotional black hole. Anyway 'empathy' is more like 'I am you' (Soham ...