Social

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

Romantic love is easily hurt and somewhat pretentious, especially when faced with direct honesty. Friendship is more solid.

He had played the lottery for years, using the same numbers every time. But on the one day that he forgot to buy a ticket, the draw revealed the winning numbers to be exactly his "lucky" numbers.

"Why is everyone so angry about everything all of the time?" That was the title of a Sydney Morning Herald article by journalist and academic Waleed Aly. The question was originally tweeted by Sally, a viewer of the BBC’s Question Time.

Albert Einstein didn't speak until he was 4 years old, and didn't read until he was 7. His parents thought he was mentally disabled, and one of the teachers described him as "mentally slow, unsociable, and adrift forever in his foolish dreams." He was expelled from school and denied admission to the Zurich Polytechnic.

The wind is blowing and it is snowing at the Siret Customs Point. Refugee groups stream by, women with children clinging to them, and the words of a little girl from another war, concluded almost eight decades ago, keep running through my mind: “And this was imprinted in my mind, that when my father is not home, it is war.”

I feel like every time I’ve tuned into the news lately, I’ve heard a story about a woman dying from intimate partner or domestic violence (DV). It is heartbreaking and sickening. 

Five decades ago, when the World Organization for Social Psychiatry was established, many thought it was a joke. Others, being more analytical, tried to prove that mental illness can only be an individual experience; that the problem always exists only in an individual and never in a group.

Courage is a special virtue: unlike other virtues that can be formed and polished over time, courage only makes itself known spontaneously and fully in situations where one is required to act, proving its existence.

"Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful"—Samuel Johnson.

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.

Two recent stories in Australian media shocked me to my core. Two 12-year-olds in different states took their own lives after being bullied at school. 

“In the works of Comenius one feels that a prophet is speaking; he was indeed a colossal figure, but only in recent years have his ideas received the respect they merit”.

“…the world was not worthy of them…” (Hebrews 11:38)

For the first time in US history, the majority of Americans believe that even moderate alcohol consumption is detrimental to health. Just 54% of Americans say they still drink alcohol. This is the lowest percentage in nearly 20 years. However, it has taken a long time to reach these conclusions.