Almost
Rational.
Writing at the intersection of love, psychology, and sociology. Unpacking why we do what we do.
We are neither logical machines nor chaotic beings. We live in the deeply human space of being almost rational.
Reading
The Sociological Imagination — C. Wright Mills
Mills argues that the personal is always political and the political is always personal. That biography and history are the same conversation. Reading it and finding it everywhere: in the articles I write, in the way organisations treat people, in why individuals blame themselves for structural failures. A 1959 book that reads like it was written last Tuesday.
Writing
Case studies of how systems fail people
Less interested in abstract theory right now. More interested in the specific: one person, one organisation, three years, a cancelled flight, a WhatsApp message that crossed a line. The case study format forces precision. You cannot hide behind generalisations when you are writing about a real person's real choices.
Obsessing Over
The gap between how organisations present themselves and what they actually do
Every company has values on the wall. Very few of them survive contact with a real decision. I keep thinking about the distance between the mission statement and the manager who turned aggressive when asked to reduce a notice period. That gap is where most of the actual psychology lives.
Fresh off the press
Latest Articles
She Was Never an Employee. She Was a Resource. Resources Do Not Get Promoted.
A case study in what a company can do to someone without ever breaking a rule, missing a process, or doing anything that would look wrong on paper. What happened to Priya over three years at a startup was not illegal. It was worse than that. It was policy.
12 min readHow Organisations Engineer Exits Without Ever Writing a Termination Letter
They will not fire you. Firing you creates paperwork, legal risk, and an uncomfortable conversation. Instead they will make the job unliveable, wait for you to quit, and call it a mutual parting of ways. Here is exactly how they do it.
10 min readThe Loneliness Epidemic Is Not About Being Alone
The most widespread mental health crisis of our time is not depression or anxiety. It is loneliness. And the research on what causes it demolishes the most common assumptions: it has very little to do with how many people you are around.
8 min readYou Cannot Think Your Way Out of Mental Illness. Here Is Why.
The most common advice given to people struggling with mental health is some version of 'change your thinking.' It sounds reasonable. It is often completely wrong. Mental illness is not primarily a problem of incorrect thoughts, and treating it as one causes real harm.
7 min readThe Diagnosis Trap: When a Label Helps and When It Cages You
A diagnosis can be a lifeline. It can also become the story you tell yourself about why you cannot change. The same label that opens a door to understanding can close the door to possibility. The difference is in how you hold it.
7 min readWhy Intelligent People Are More Likely to Suffer
There is a persistent romantic idea that suffering and intelligence are connected. The research suggests it is not entirely wrong, but for reasons that have nothing to do with romance. Higher cognitive ability creates specific vulnerabilities that most people never examine.
8 min readWorth your time
Editor's Picks
She Was Never an Employee. She Was a Resource. Resources Do Not Get Promoted.
A case study in what a company can do to someone without ever breaking a rule, missing a process, or doing anything that would look wrong on paper. What happened to Priya over three years at a startup was not illegal. It was worse than that. It was policy.
How Organisations Engineer Exits Without Ever Writing a Termination Letter
They will not fire you. Firing you creates paperwork, legal risk, and an uncomfortable conversation. Instead they will make the job unliveable, wait for you to quit, and call it a mutual parting of ways. Here is exactly how they do it.
Narcissism Was Not Born in You. It Was Built.
We talk about narcissists as if they emerged fully formed, incapable of empathy by nature. The developmental psychology tells a different story: narcissism is a structure built in childhood to survive specific kinds of emotional failure. That changes what we should do about it.
The writer
Satyam
I write about the space between logic and emotion: where love, psychology, and sociology collide. If you have ever made a decision and then wondered why, this is for you.
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