Rita And Sheila And Marks

Pain is essential for survival. And for good communication. Talking about your pain makes you seem human, vulnerable. When you show interest in another's pain, you show empathy (atleast cognitive empathy).

People who indulge in pain also exhibit one strange habit. That is to measure contribution not in absolute terms but also taking into account the amount that could have been contributed given the pain. For these people, hence, contribution is measured as a fraction: what one contributed compared to what one could have given their pain. 

Is that too wrong?

Well let's assume there was an exam that had 10 questions, all of equal weight. 

Rita, a very good student, answered 7 of the 10 correctly. Sheila, a not so good one, answered 4 correctly. Let's say Sheila could only have answered 5 at the most given her competence. A "painful" grader would give 7/10=70% to Rita and 4/5=80% to Sheila.

If a student wanted to maximize her grades, she could also focus on exhibiting a lower potential apart from trying to improve her competence. Go through this link for a maths demo: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1MEe5Ds492tdQcbGvFy9lsXzS9AUOImmK78RvER7xxwA/edit?usp=drivesdk

In a social setting between Rita and Sheila where the former focused on not showing her pain while the latter did the opposite, where would Rita be after a length of time?

When we reward people based on their performance relative to their potential we penalize people whose potential is high.

In Tamil there is a saying which roughly translates as: "It's the baby who cries that gets fed". Meaning those babies that don't cry are apt to get fed less.


Isn't it nice to express how much pain you are in?

Additional reading
https://vbala99.blogspot.com/2019/01/the-weak-shall-inherit-earth.html