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Beginning with Cain and Abel, history has known famous and less famous stories woven around the devastating experience of envy.

The whirlwind of activities and deadlines that adult life throws at us often makes us resistant to closeness. We abandon old friends and neglect building new relationships until inevitably, the day comes when we start feeling pressed against the self-erected walls of loneliness.

An experimenter is like a hunter who, instead of waiting quietly for game, tries to make it rise, by beating up the locality where he assumes it is. – Francis Bacon, 17th-century English philosopher

Eye-catching banners on high-traffic websites, marketing campaigns, genuine or illusory discounts, deals that vanish in seconds. Shopping lists, fierce price hunts, early morning alarms. Jumping the gun, millions in sales, ecstatic or dissatisfied customers, delayed deliveries, and blown budgets. In a word: Black Friday.

Nelson Mandela, one of the most iconic figures in the fight against apartheid—the system of racial segregation enforced by South Africa’s white minority government—spent 27 years in prison for his commitment to dignity, equality, and justice.

For many people, the New Year is the catalyst for making changes they didn't have time or energy for in the previous year. On 1 January, the list of resolutions grows promisingly long, but keeping them can become a real ordeal in the tangle of daily problems and deadlines. Statistics show that even before the month of snowdrops, many of the commitments made...

When we were kids, we were experts at finding new hobbies.

“...what matters is not the meaning of life in general, but rather the specific meaning of a person’s life at a given moment...” (Viktor E. Frankl)

The mental load is a concept that has gained attention in the last little while. What if mental load had a baby?

Kayley lies on the floor, throwing a tantrum because she only has pink flashing-heel shoes and she wants a blue pair to match her new jeans. John sits on the floor, happily playing with a few blocks of wood. His dad found them lying in the street, brought them home and sanded them smooth. Yesterday he stacked them up to build a castle....

I love books as much as I love people, but if I’m honest with myself, sometimes I find a little more comfort in the company of books than in the presence of my fellow humans.

Next to family and health, friends are among the top reasons that make us happy. But what if we are solitary, recluse or shy?

Little over a decade ago, a highly acclaimed British documentary filmmaker, Louis Theroux, stepped into the midst of 500 paedophiles admitted to the psychiatric hospital in Coalinga, California, trying to find out if the complex treatment the convicts had to go through was really working.

“The words of the mouth are deep waters, but the fountain of wisdom is a rushing stream” (Proverbs 18:4).

Early reports out of China showed that elderly people and the chronically ill were most vulnerable to Covid-19. Yet an alarming number of young people in the United States have been hospitalized with severe infections. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly 40% of American Covid-19 patients who were hospitalized were under 55 – and 20% were between ages 20...