In every person's life, there probably comes a time when all success feels hollow; probably because they don't have anybody to share it with. Success is a self-correcting mechanism - the more one succeeds, the more indifferent friends one acquires, and hence the more humane one would tend to become; because the sparkle in your true friends' eyes when you succeed is truly priceless. My happiest moment in life was when after my CAT result, some of the juniors wore badges that said that they are proud of me. That moment will probably never return; and that moment was priceless. I felt so special, because I felt that I had made good relations in College. Success is a one-man game, it is easier. Relations are multi-player games, they are the real deal. Ask a consultant!

I have felt quite privileged in life - going to one of the best schools in the country, arguably the best undergraduate College in the country; having parents who were able and willing to buy me any educational material that I needed, who also gave me freedom to go out there and explore the world, make wrong decisions, fall and get back up; having seniors and peers who guided me so brilliantly and stood up for me at any fora. There is simply too much to be thankful for; and with that always comes the realisation that whatever success I have seen might be because of factors that are exogenous. It is true that I worked hard, very hard, for every single moment (sometimes it felt like fighting a battle); but I was fortunate to have that opportunity to fight the battle. Many people don't - either they go to inferior schools, have very interfering parents who are still caught up in a time warp or simply are not aware.

However, every time that I take a step in 'giving back' to this world, I am given two reasons not to. First is that I am too young and am not in a secure position. The argument is that one should give back only when one is in a strong enough position to do so. The second is that I should only attempt to give back if it is impactful enough, i.e. helps the neediest of people.

After much thought, I have come to the conclusion that I strongly disagree. As an economics student, opportunity cost is my God. To the first argument, I would say that my career progression need not always be hampered by things that I do for the 'larger goal'. A junior has taught me the difference between hard work and smart work. I can always work smartly and efficiently to maximise the impact I have, without affecting my work. To the second argument, I would invoke the Ricardian theory of comparative advantage. There would only be certain things that I am good at. Work for the 'neediest' is better left to huge organisations that have achieved great economies of scale. I should try to make a difference only in that space where I might be better off.

With that in mind, here is a start to this journey. It is a series of video lectures on Econometrics that I prepared. I hope they are useful!

http://www.youtube.com/user/bhadrasubhashish?feature=watch

It has been a long time since I posted on this blog. In fact, this is the first entry since I started working. For those of my friends who know me as phlegmatic, my yearning for College over the last two months would come as a surprise. There have been some days when I have woken up with an intense feeling of emptiness. The first few weekends in Delhi, I traveled frantically to College, in order to be connected to the place. Over time, the feeling has dissipated, but what I ask myself is whether I have become accustomed to it, or have I found a way to circumvent it?

There is one truth I have realised - what is my image of College will gradually cease to exist. Yes, the buildings will exist as they have always done. But, for me, College consisted of two things - the spirit, and the people. The people have mostly gone; and even though I'll meet them less often, I am fairly confident that I will not find my life wanting in this regard. The 'spirit' that I talk about was one of liberation. I was liberated from what I used to be. It is in College that I did things I would never imagine myself doing. I bothered less about what society expects of me, and more about what makes me happy. I grew intensely selfish and yet, unimaginably selfless.

My College life was a fairytale - it is something I can imagine telling someone very excitedly about. It was a journey I wouldn't imagine myself going through. To put things in perspective, I have had two instances of national recognition academically; and yet, the academic achievement I feel most proud of was my performance in the last University examinations. I pushed myself to the very limit, and I came out trumps - I cannot imagine anything else meaning more to me than that. In fact, every time I arrive at the Kolkata airport, I look at the spot where I was first told the news, and I instantly feel so complete. That feeling, truly, is the raison-de-etre of my existence.

The tagline of The Namesake - the greatest journey is one that brings you home - has been a lodestone for me. Today, as I take a step back from work, and finally have some time to think about the bigger questions of life, I realise that for some time, I tried hard to 'fit in'. Eventually, I realised that it was pointless. Today, I am raring to be myself under all situations. I remember that when I came to College, I would say 'namaste' with folded hands to everybody I met.  On one hand, it satisfied my urge to be different, while on the other it gave me a sense of being able to do what I wanted to, and not just confirm to certain stereotypes. I believe that this streak gave me all the success that I experienced in College.

When you are able to do what you want to do, it feels really special. For me, doing this something different has never meant doing something different. It has always meant doing something differently (this again goes back to Class IV, when I hosted my school investiture ceremony and began with the quote - a leader is not one who does different things, but is one who does things differently). With all humility, and acknowledging my lack of experience, I would urge the reader to not be weighed down by fear. As someone who at several points in life looked at death very closely, I try to live every day such that I would be satisfied when death finally comes. Every tear has been as memorable as every laugh. Most of all, I feel that I have touched people's lives, as they have touched mine.

The years at College

A new phase of life will begin soon. While I am as excited as I should be, there is a part of me that is afraid. College was an amazing time, and I must say that the personal and intellectual growth that I experienced in College was tremendous. This post was supposed to be a preamble to my future, but I just realised that I have never written about my time in College, and never put it in perspective. So, let me do that here. Let me take names one final time before I walk into the proverbial sunset.

Call me juvenile, but I must say the truth and nothing else. Much of what I learnt at College was at the Finance and Investment Cell. No, I am not talking about learning finance. Neither am I talking about the Excel skills. The people I met in the society have changed my world view. I cannot imagine where I would be had I not been part of this society - and for me, it is nothing less than revolutionary. The kind of freedom that I experienced at F&I made me what I am. Till then, I had the independence but I never knew what to do with it. Karan never pretended (or perhaps even wanted) to be a mentor, but that is precisely what he has been to me. He would probably chide me for putting this here, but I've always looked up to him. Every time when I faced a problem at F&I, I wondered what Karan would have done. I still have rough edges in my public life - but I have come a long way, and I owe much of it to him. Then there was Sanjay bhaiyya. I probably have never seen a person as much loved and respected as he was in College, but I respect him so much for something that still brings tears to my eyes (and it is doing so as I write). It was April 2 2011, on a day that would easily be the worst in my College life, and I had held up well; and then to hear him, just brought forward such strong emotions.

It was also at F&I that I met the person who would be the most important aspect of my college life - my best friend, my chaddi buddy Manchit Mahajan. We have such divergent personalities and world views (as our recent MBTI analysis at ISB revealed) that it is surprising we got along at all. Manchit has this thing about him that makes him the most reliable of friends. I would not have been able to go to the IIM interviews had it not been for Manchit, and so many more such instances. His room in Allnutt North was my first home in my first year (my own room being my 'second home'). He's enriched my life in so many ways that thanks would be an understatement. I owe my life to him - literally and metaphorically.

Finally, there were the juniors, but I leave that for later. At F&I, I learnt the virtues of respect and honesty that I still hold, and will continue to hold, very dear to me. In the context of biased decision-making in other societies, and in my vicinity at large, I learnt to uphold what is right and unbiased at all costs, personal or otherwise. These are traits that I am sure will define me as I love ahead in life - respect and honesty. This has been my greatest learning at F&I, and at times it amazes me how much a College society can teach you.

Friendship, like any other relationship, is one of give and take. You give respect, love and warmth and you receive the same. Hence, it isn't quite possible to decompose which of the two is the greater. I have made some amazing friends at College (again, I exclude the juniors for now) - Swati, Kashish, Juhi, Pooja, Pranati. Everybody would say that his/her friends are amazing, and there is nothing I can say to convince you that mine are, more than anybody else's. If you look at how many arguments Kashish and I have had over these years, and how much we still care about each other and stay connected, then probably the 'amazingness' will creep in. He's so simple and naive that you'd be stunned that people like that are still present in our world!

Swati and I have often been more like 'partners in crime'. We have worked together on so many things that it is hard to keep count. The funniest thing is that I have absolutely no idea of when we became friends. My oldest memory of Swati is of December in our first year, on that 'fateful day'. She is the noble soul who tries to sort out the mess wherever she sees it. Juhi has been an absolute inspiration! The heights of sporting success that she's witnessed is the kind of stuff that I can only dream of. I'm sorry to Era for not mentioning here. But, to be fair to me, we became really good friends after College got over. I'll miss Kolkata primarily because I'll miss her.

Moving away from friendships for a moment, St. Stephen's as an institution itself has contributed so much to who I am. It is a unique College - I cannot judge whether it is better or worse than the others. I, like many others, prefer to call it a bubble. It is a warm bubble, for sure. The teaching, as much as we like to criticise it, is first-rate. I do not believe there would be too many other Colleges where many put in effort not to score, but to either learn, or out of respect for the teacher. I have done the latter, very often. There is a unique way in which each teacher challenges you. In saying so, I probably speak only of my department, but I see no reason that it should not extend to the others. Some teachers have even taught me so much about life (of course, unintentionally). For a person who came into College quite sure of following the Eco(H)+IIM+Job route, I believe that the College has transformed me completely. I'm sure that many who know me wouldn't agree. Have patience, there is a lot more still to come!

What is one thing, just one thing, that I find unique about Stephania? It is the bonding. No, not the bond of being 'Stephanian'. I refer to the bond of being so humane. What I will take away from College, and cherish with me forever, is the kind of respect that I have been showered here. I absolutely adore my juniors, and they've become such an integral part of my life. At times, I have felt obligated towards them. Much of what I achieved in College was because I wanted to give back to them something that would justify their unflinching faith in me. 

Gaurav is so helpful to everyone that it is hard to believe that it is even humanly possible. He's also an inspiration in how to give yourself to others in wonderful ways. About Suhani, there is little that I can say. She's a very strong and unique person, and there have been so many times when she's been a source of support and strength. We share a very unique bond, in that we talk very little about each others' lives. But there is such good understanding, without the need to communicate, that I can forcefully say that I'm not going to experience again. As for Juni, I can only say that sometimes when I feel lonely, down and out, just remembering her say 'Bhadra!' in her trademark style can cheer me.

I thought I would not feel so attached to any junior as I had become to them. I was wrong. There are two friends of mine who've helped inflate my ego in wonderful ways (for the record, my inflated ego is often a good thing). Arnav would probably not recollect it, but he once said (and I paraphrase) 'God saved you for the best and worst of things'. I turn to that sentence very often to rejuvinate my sagging spirits. And then there is Niket. It's hard to imagine that someone who I was trying to avoid online before we came to College is today one of my best friends. There are more people who I could write about - Abhisek, Shruti, Anoothi, Anshuman, Sambodhi among others - but I will avoid that for lack of space. Otherwise, this will become a 'thank you' exercise that I don't intend it to become. I'll thank these guys individually anyway.

Every story needs a tragedy. I have fought myself over this repeatedly over the past few weeks. A part of me wants to keep it within. A part wants to feel liberated. The kind of trauma that I went through in my second year is what I would wish nobody goes through. However, it also made me a much better person in several ways. I still learn a lot from that episode, and it has put my life in a higher growth trajectory. I do not want to look back and judge whether I was right, or he was. There is a part of me that would tend to move on, to reach out. There is a part that would still live those days for the rest of my life. It is the union of both parts that makes me complete.

This is easily the longest post in my life. Yet, it is a minuscule glimpse into three years that I have barely spoken about. In memory of these three years, I can think of only one way to put it - I have loved, and lost. Lost, only to gain far more.

Signing off!

Vivekananda, Death and Uncertainty

While there was something else on my mind that I wanted to write about, I came across a brief anecdote on Anshul Chatterjee's interpretation of Swami Vivekananda's words (click here for the article). Mr. Chatterjee insists that Vivekananda's fearlessness of death, and the uncertainty that follows, makes Vivekananda's stature even greater. After reading the article, I see a simple generalisation of the concept - that one must not fear any uncertainty whatsoever. We must swim with the tide.

There is one qualification I must make - I am talking about uncertainties that cannot be affected by our actions. Death is one such uncertainty. However, to say that I shall play with fire is not within the ambit of discussion - certainly, your actions in this case determine the nature of uncertainty. In economics, we could talk about moral hazard.

I believe that the rationale behind fearlessness of uncertainty is that there are so many things about which we do not know. For example, if making a decision about the future, there are innumerable number of variables about which I would not presently know. For example, I would meet new people, I will encounter different circumstances and my own reaction to those circumstances is something that I do not know.

For those of you who have viewed Steve Job's speech at Stanford University, this is akin to connecting the dots looking backward. For those who haven't, I insist that you must. Here's the link.

Finally, fearlessness of uncertainty should not be taken as license for ignoring prior information. This is somewhat akin to rational expectations. Only that part of 'uncertainty' which we cannot figure out using information available to us, is the uncertainty that we must not fear. For example, while choosing whether to go to a foreign university, there is a lot of field work that I can do to get information - in terms of placement prospects, alumni, professors etc. However, at the end of the day, whether the University works for me or not is something I cannot say. The information that I have gathered might allow me to make a calculated guess. However, it will be just that - a guess. Uncertainty is part of life, and we must embrace it.

Reflections ...

It's been a long time since I've wanted to write this post. I've thought it through to myself several times, yet every time I'm not able to complete the chain of thoughts. I'm hoping now that I'm finally putting it up on my blog, I'm able to express it as vividly as the emotions attached to it.

When I went to sleep on the night of 11th June 2012, it struck me that I had indeed been very fortunate. I remembered that time in Class VII when I looked up at a list of the Top 20 performers of my batch in DPS, R.K.Puram (Deboleena Roy's is the only name from that list that I remember) and I thought to myself that it would be so great to have my name on that list some day. Then that time in Class VIII when I worked so hard to top my section, and finished a 'lowly' fourth. I'd never been the topper types, and never been exceptional in anything that I did. In Class IX, when I began what I can only call the most significant (and last) rivalry of my life with Shubham Prakhar, I did work very hard. But the results were still mediocre, to say the best. I had never been at the top of the food chain, and I never knew how it felt.

On that night, here I was, amazed at how kind God had been. I would have called my topping the Class XII boards as payback for a lifetime of hard work academically, but God had given me more. Something that I could probably cherish for the rest of my life. It means something to me, not because it is a big thing in itself, but because I feel I have deserved it and not just got it by fluke (even though I fully acknowledge the handiwork of luck at play).

The one question that I asked myself (and trust me, nobody else ever did) was which one matters more to me - topping the Class XII boards or topping CAT. Here's the truth: when I topped the Class XII boards, there was very little justification that I could give to myself as to why I topped. After all, I mugged up much of physics and chemistry and had absolutely 0 aptitude for the subjects. In fact, I crammed my way through Maths too, and I justified it saying that I simply out-smarted CBSE. I simply thought to myself that God paid back all the hard work for the NTSE, Olympiads, quizzes etc. There was no functional link here.

However, when I topped the CAT, it felt like vindication. My friends Kashish and Manchit would vouch for the role the word 'quant' played in my life from July to November. As I said, I have never been a fan of mathematics, and hence had to slog long hours to conquer the quantitative section of the CAT. I had worked very hard for it, waking up at 5:30 every morning during the vacations, attending CAT classes from 7 to 9 and then going for my internship from 10 to 5, only to come back and study. Yet, the quantitative section was not why I call the CAT result a vindication (at any rate, I did not do too well on the quant section). Throughout the months and months of CAT preparation, I had not touched the verbal section. Trust me, there is no exaggeration - I had not practiced even 1 verbal section question for the CAT. There was a quiet belief that I was good. And it seemed I was. Scoring 100 percentile on the verbal section was why I did well on the CAT.

Hence, even though the fanfare after my CAT result was a minuscule fraction of the absolute riot that followed the boards result, I feel more attached to the former. My score on verbal was a result of so many things that I never knew would matter. Reading newspapers, for one. Then my failed mission to go through an entire dictionary (I reached C, in any case). And finally, the GRE word lists that I did just for kicks. Almost all my college friends would point out my irritating habit of pointing out flaws in their grammar and vocabulary. It's been a way of life for some time now, and finally it paid off.

What made my CAT result day special was the amazing amount of love that my friends showered on me. Kritika, for one, was there on both days - on phone in 2009 and in person in 2012. The fun part, incidentally, was that my brother informed me that the result was out, but I was busy playing Rise of Nations with Aayush, Niket and Samyobrata. I didn't bother to check. Honestly, I didn't care. Till I saw the actual score. I guess people who know me wouldn't imagine me jumping with joy, but Niket and Samyobrata were witness to that unsavory sight. Manchit was the unfortunate victim to getting woken up at 3 AM in the night. The best part - Mrs. Leema Mohan catching me texting in class, asking me to get up and solve something on the board while she went to change the marker, and then the entire class congratulating me. Life never felt better than to be appreciated by my classmates. Perhaps I'm being extremely materialistic and shallow. So be it.

I guess what makes me happiest is that I could make my family happy. I, like most other people, am full of faults and some of them are particularly severe. However, these two incidents helped me overcome them partially by making my parents and brother proud. For once, I guess I've taken the easier way out.

The one thing that I am fairly certain of, is that it really has been my peer group, and more importantly my friend circle, that has helped me climb the ladder. Had I not met Shubham Prakhar, I wouldn't have got anywhere in life - of that I am certain. Had I not met Kritika, Aeshwarya and Jayati, then the last year of school life would have been an absolutely lifeless drudgery. To imagine even part of my college life without my friends would be sacrilege. More often than not, my friends at college have pampered me like a prodigal friend, and I owe it completely to them.

The reality, and in my opinion the sad reality, of my life has been that I have climbed the ladder in a competitive manner. First there is X, then Y and so on ... it has often been about becoming better than someone progressively. Of course, that came to a near halt in college when the self-limiting tendency of such a process became apparent. This is one part that I do not feel very comfortable with. However, it is thankfully over. I am finally in a space wherein the urge to better myself is not planted by an external stimulus, but is a completely internalised process. Perhaps this is the most significant achievement of my life thus far.

A major learning experience along the way has been criticism. As someone who is himself more critical of others than required, I note that there are three primary reasons for criticism - a genuine need to correct, a need to show off, and a need to hide your own insecurities. More often than not, it is impossible to distinguish between the three. Criticism still gets the better of me. Very often, it seems unjustified and I fight with it in my mind. But the very action of trying to find it means that criticism gets the better of me. Hence, this continues to be my Achilles' heel.

At this point of time, a part of me wants to sit down and relax. That part of me says that it's been a long, arduous path. Perhaps it is time to slow down temporarily. But that would tantamount to being untrue to myself. There are also two directions that my thoughts go in. On one hand, I look back at what I aimed to achieve standing before that list of 20 Toppers in Class VII, and I feel I have achieved a lot. On the other, I look around and the humbling reality sets in that no matter how much you achieve, there's always someone who's achieved more. Between the two, I believe, lies human happiness. A perennial disenchantment, along with a sense of fulfillment. At the end of the day, I want to be a good human being; in that I could wake up everyday, look myself in the mirror, and feel proud of having loved and been loved.

Of forgiveness and moving on

A question that confronted me today was whether I should just let go of things and 'move on' as if nothing ever happened. It made me think, and by the end of the day I figured out that the question is essentially one of rationality. There is a part of humans that is rational (economics?) and one that is irrational. The question is how much of a human is what. I would try to bring out certain inherent contradictions between rationality and irrationality through this piece.

A lesson that was learnt today, is that most people are inherently impatient. They will say that they will do something, pretend to persevere and ask 'what happened?'. But eventually, as the day gets long, most people are going to leave your room and move on. Some will come back only to show anger at how disgusting you've been. This is the human tendency to move to lighter situations and self-pity, that I had referenced yesterday. Staying true to the word is not going to be a stable equilibrium, because there is a strictly positive payoff to just forgetting about someone else's pain as if nothing ever happened. To stay put would, in fact, be irrational. In this case, the 'right' thing to do is thus irrational. Only those with an inhuman capacity to bear pain are going to be able to stay put in this sad, depressing environment.

Now returning to the point of 'moving on'. There is an aspect to decision making that is most rational and that we as humans often ignore. It is the idea of 'sunk cost'. We let history dictate our decisions - the ghosts of the past still abound in our present. A rational decision-maker would not consider sunk cost. But most of us do. This is another aspect in which we are all irrational. Or are we? Is history 'sunk'? In the sense that our present actions can't change it, it is. But in the sense that we might still be incurring certain pains because of it, it might. This is much like the concept of depreciation. As a fixed percentage of the capital good, depreciation is a cost incurred over several periods of time. Yes, it diminishes over time; but is is always present. Similarly, the one-off incident might have been a part of the past, but the memory stays. This is what makes us distinctively human, and this is what makes history so important.

In my case, I'm trying to be as rational as I can be. My decision to move on, or not to do so, would be dictated solely by whether the costs that I incur are sunk costs, or variable costs. If I see myself getting hurt in the near future because of the people with whom I want to give my friendship another try, it would be irrational of me to let bygones be bygones. There are certain actions, moments and images that remind one of a very painful past. Maybe this is why this 'moving on' is going to come far in the future, when adaptive memories ensure that the part that pains has been greatly diminished. Till then, I probably do not see myself moving on.

This might paint a very disillusioned portrait of human forgiveness. Maybe it isn't. Like all economic models, there are certain assumptions that lead to this conclusion. One is that there would not be a structural change that might lessen the intensity of the pain. Maybe there is light at the end of the tunnel, maybe there is hope that this 'moving on' will also include a change. Maybe there will be more humanity. Maybe ...

Of give and take

Over the past few days, I have incessantly thought about how some friendships have drained me. I once read the quotation that the most precious thing you can give to someone is time - because it is the most valuable thing in life, which can never be brought back. I added 'effort' to that combination, and have given it to the more precious of my friendships. At a time when many of them have gone bust, I have to question myself of what went wrong. Friendships should ideally be highly personal, not to be shared on blogs in any case. However, maybe there lies a lesson, or an error of judgement, that might be of some help to someone else in future.

I start this public soliloquy with a description of the pain. Sometimes the pain is so intense that it is hard to imagine that it isn't real, physical pain. The pain emerges out of nowhere, like an old friend; and I could place my bets that I feel the heart skip a few beats. The one thing I realise about the pain, and which I will carry in my heart for the rest of my life - is that it is always borne alone. No matter how much people around you say that they are there, there are functional barriers that prevent them from keeping their word. For one, they don't quite understand the pain. They will view the pain from the prism of their private experiences. Since no two humans' experiences are ever the same (injective functions?), hence no two evaluations will ever be the same. The words, no matter how sincere, will always ring hollow in the end. Secondly, humans by nature are not very sacrificing. It's almost a law of nature - wherever there is joy, happiness and smiling faces, the heart is drawn. Where there is pain, darkness and brooding, we seek to escape. I would be unfair to say that everyone is like that. I say again, sab aise hi hote hai, and that 'sab' means 'the majority', and not 'for all x'.

Another aspect of human behaviour that I was acquainted with is the level to which other humans matter. There are no dominant strategies in life, and hence the best responses change with the other players' actions. The dark, brooding variety moves from one shoulder to cry on, to another; in the endless hope that some day, the wait might end; that some day, salvation would break the cloud of disarray. The other variety also moves, from one source of joy to another; as if this endless search for joy was all that there was to life.

One aspect of these 'break-ups' has been fairly painful. It is the sense of disappointment. One of the poems I once wrote talked about the dangers of stretching yourself for someone - it usually leads to you tearing yourself up in the process. I have been accused of 'counting' instances where I have gone beyond what was needed. My dad often told me of the parable 'Neki kar aur kuen mein daal' (do good, and then forget about it). If not abiding by it in letter and spirit is a crime, then I am a criminal. If the hope of better treatment and basic human respect is like begging, I am the beggar. A house robbed repeatedly only grows in stature. Very obviously, there is something in the house that is desirable; and when that thing is intrinsic to the nature of the house itself, rather than a distinct entity, then constant robberies can only make it grow over time and space.

There is a 'nothingness' in my life right now. What had to be 'achieved', has been achieved. What had to be let go, has been let go. The pain doesn't go. Even six months down the line, it doesn't. Maybe it grows over time. Maybe it grows with every word, every day, every ended relationship and every missed opportunity. Thankfully, Tagore wrote about walking alone. Thankfully, there is always a new friendship with which you can fool yourself. Thankfully, being lonely has a certain poignancy. The heart feels heavy, but it does let you sleep. The pain is dismissed for the night. It will return only tomorrow.

One last thing, and let me state it as such. Arrogance is overstated. We often do not give people a chance - a chance to talk, to try to explain and the like. If they explain, they are out to prove their righteousness. The content doesn't matter - what matters is how many times you argued in the last month. When did judgements become adaptive instead of rational? Either way, judgments are often made under imperfect information. There will always, by definition, be a difference between what people truly believe and what they end up projecting - either intentionally or unintentionally. This stems from the fact that the heart (to be more biologically correct, the emotional part of the brain) is far more versatile than the mouth or other expressive organs are. What is the point of sitting in judgement whether one is arrogant or not? At best, you are right, and given that the other person IS arrogant, he/she doesn't care. At worst, your constant jibes have just killed the will to live in another person, because all that he/she stood for has been massively desecrated.

Hence, in life (as in economic principle), I believe in the magic of free markets. The buyers and sellers in the market are anonymous; it doesn't matter where they came from, what they said, and the like. What matters is the price at which they will trade. Similarly, what (ideally) matters in relationships is not the words, the emotional jugglery or the like; what matters is the action and action alone. Anything else will be biased. And judgemental.

Like a criminal on trial, with this I rest my case.