New Delhi, Sept. 27 -- The self-improvement of other people has ruined conversations for me. Increasingly, when they speak of human nature and the mind, they speak in labels and concepts.

There was a time when I had to only suffer friends who had newly learnt of "yin and yang" and some affluent underworked people who were "burnt out." Now I have to endure "inner child," "the fawn," "demons," "safe space" and "are you emotionally available?"

So prevalent is this that almost every friend of mine might think I am referring to them, which I am not.

There has been a democratization of abstraction. Suddenly everyone is a 'thinker,' because they are now educated in 'deep' stuff. They have started announcing that they are thinker; some who don...