172 Monday Musings: The four cases of nuts!

172 Monday Musings: The four cases of nuts!

In my younger days, I held the belief that a person choosing to study psychology was in dire straits and was perhaps studying the subject as a cover for his need to be go through therapy. Overall it indicated to me a study of those who had lost it. Luckily there are always plenty of those who had lost it, and for the want of a better word, were popularly christened as nuts. I don’t know what they had against nuts. These nuts are not be eaten, but to avoided. When your opinions elicit dismay, crossed eyebrows, surprise, and when the listener is unable to take it any further, even a groan, then you must know that you have earned the dubious distinction of being called a nutcase. You might have company, but that still will not limit your power to destabilise social harmony. If it was not for politeness that people studied in the moral science lessons, you might have a broken skull long time ago. You might earn the epithet of a nut by any of the following methods. Your mental models resemble the Neanderthal, your tastes resembles the primitives, your jokes are an assault on senses, your decision making process must be framed and put in the museum and your take on things might prove life on mars!

On the other hand, you are simply amazed how everyone disagrees with you violently,  is always hyper with their reaction to your views, are at their edges when they have to deal with you, are ready to pick up a fight even when you make a harmless suggestion – overall they all seem to be, well – nuts. Bingo, that is yet another proof of Newtonian brilliance, that ‘every action has an equal and opposite reaction’.

There are four ways in which a sentence around nuts can be structured and has to be interpreted appropriately, a failure to do so leading to disastrous consequences.

Case 1 :‘Are you nuts or what?’ is not a question germinating out of curiosity, it is a statement of finally, stamped, notarised and registered!. Do not be fooled by the question mark, it exists to mislead you that your view about the question matters and your answer will make a difference.

Case 2: ‘You  must be nuts’ is a judgement proclaimed with the sanctity of the Supreme court. It cannot be questioned or opined upon. You can always look forward to a Presidential pardon, but a reputation tarnished is damage done. As far as the person who has issued the statement to you is concerned, the verdict is out. You better find a way to deal with it.

Case 3 :‘You are a nutcase’ indicates that you are congenitally deformed and there is no hope for correction and cure. It is proclaimed when the attempt is make you feel less guilty about your nutcase status as all blame can be assigned to interplay of the XX and YY chromosomes, sourced obviously from your predecessors.

Case 4: ‘Are you nuts!’ Well, don’t lose the exclamation mark because it is the only sign that differentiates it from case 1. It is expressed as a surprise, almost a shock, mostly pleasant, and often by the fairer gender to express the absolute unimaginable joy, amongst other things, of finding the right shade of nail paint, getting the Gucci bag in a bargain, finding a new shop that sells clothes that you don’t need etc. 

Guru