Analysis

When a process is thought to be too slow or impractical to test experimentally, simulation science is a valuable tool for testing its validity.

Even after the World Health Organization replaced the term social distancing with physical distancing, people are still feeling the effects of social distancing.

From the ship’s hold, 102 passengers poured eagerly onto the deck, pale after 65 days of confinement, longing to see the sky and dry land again. Their arrival in the New World might have gone entirely unnoticed had these immigrants not marked history with a first act that would come to define modern democracy.

Looking back, I realize how the ferocious world beneath the heavens is tamed, at crucial moments, through communication on that biblical Ladder of Jacob.

Suppose I leave the window open then leave home. A stack of banknotes can be seen on the table through the open window. An individual walking down the street notices the opportunity, thinks for a while, but decides to move on. Why would a man who has the opportunity to steal decide not to?

How should addictions be understood? Addiction is usually regarded as a failure of the will, or as a sickness. Lately, the tendency is for the younger, educated generation to embrace the second answer. The idea that addiction is a failure of the will, a sin, from a Christian perspective, is seen as outdated.

Our brain develops, unfortunately, a quirky response to nicotine. It shouldn’t really be there. It shouldn’t be in your breath, let alone you reacting to it, let alone you smoking anything or vaping anything. We shouldn’t even be near it.

I notice people, and passionately collect their stories. My favourite stories include those small cracks that allow one to peek inside another soul, those moments when their voice is almost imperceptibly altered, the eyes light up for a reason I do not know, and their gestures are unexpected.

In talking to pastor Cristian Modan, the religion teacher and chaplain at Mihai Ionescu School in Bucharest, I wanted to find out how we should teach children to communicate with God.

What we think about ourselves, over time, becomes our reality. This is a good enough reason to identify thinking errors left running in the background and to seek out strategies for healthier thinking.

In the late 1980s, Donald Trump was asked how much money it would take to make him happy. His answer? “Ten per cent more.” 

Love stories have a way of creeping into the foreground and convincing us that their effervescent debut is just the overture to a marriage that will always rekindle, in a different intensity, the same fireworks of beginnings.

The midlife crisis can cause an unpleasant shudder to those approaching this stage, a stage supposedly marked by anxiety, depression, a reassessment of life, disillusionment and the painful experience of all the internal and external changes that are taking place. But what if, despite the critical changes, midlife is a time of growth and joy rather than a succession of crises?

We often say God is good, especially when, after threatening to go dangerously off track, life resumes its regular course. But what is left to say when all that remains of our dearest dreams is a handful of shards that can no longer be glued together?

"Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them" (Matthew 5:17).