Social

"The Clifford Goldstein story" is addressed to those who, ever so often, feel the need to read something about experimentation, because it is not about theorising a rebellious young man's search for the path of life, but rather a true-life story.

In 1867, when Edson White was 18 years old and working at the Adventist type-room in Battle Creek, Michigan, he had a transformative conversation with Mr Bell.

I spoke very little in my early years and my mother says that my silence scared her. She never knew what was going through my mind. She was afraid I was hiding something.

"All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone" (Blaise Pascal).

Bridges seem to be the emblem of existential stress for Romanians. In the face of a difficult situation, even Romanian folk wisdom recommends: "Make a pact with the devil until you have crossed the bridge."

When we want to position ourselves for or against voluntary euthanasia, we must first be aware that, in addition to the subjective dimension of the issue, there are also important objective aspects to consider.

Pastor and author Ed Gungor reckons he’s learned a lot about life from Frank, his small white-haired terrier. So much so that he has entitled his book One Small Barking Dog: How to Live a Life That’s Hard to Ignore. 

We live in an era defined by speed, where everything, from information to personal gratification, seems to be just the push of a button away.

More and more people are choosing cohabitation over marriage. Many young people believe that cohabiting helps them to make better decisions about marriage by giving the couple a chance to "practise" before making a lifelong commitment. There is also a belief that cohabiting before marriage reduces the likelihood of marital problems or divorce.

Most of us have been urged since we were little to not give up, to carry on, and to “go our own way”. The idea that giving up is a negative choice, a synonym for failure, or a sign of cowardice or inability, is deeply embedded in our minds.

You wouldn’t think so, but whether or not children do chores is one predictor of their future happiness and success. 

When strangers give you a helping hand after your friends have forgotten about you, the world suddenly seems a little more beautiful. This was the experience of PJ Robins when a crowd of strangers suddenly arrived at the party for his autistic little girl, which no one else had wanted to attend.

Many years ago, while I was still in high school, our Romanian language and literature teacher assigned us the task of writing a framed story, complete with characters and a plot of our choosing.

We often associate divorce with the unhappiness of adults who reprehensibly decide to go their separate ways. For under-age brides Noora and Nujood, however, divorce was their escape from a nightmare of domestic violence and abuse, into which they were thrown at a young age by their own families.

When I ponder the statement, “Life holds potential meaning under any condition, even the most miserable,” the story of an anonymous woman comes to my mind. She made a deep impression on me and taught me about two existential states: having, and being.