Social Comparison Theory

Good theories are like good chai — strong, simple, and best shared. Social Comparison Theory qualifies.

What the theory says, finally, is that people are predictable in their unpredictability. That is useful knowledge. It lets you forgive more and be surprised less.

Strip it to the floor and you find an old instruction: look carefully, judge slowly, act decently. The new name exists because the old instruction keeps being forgotten.

Stand at a tea stall during a big cricket match and you will see a hundred strangers become one family in an evening. The same crowd, given a different match, can split over a surname.

Society is a long conversation; the only question is whether you are listening or merely waiting to speak. That is all. A small tool, honestly kept, beats a large one admired.