Social

On any given day, a typical person checks the clock several dozen times.

Children have big feelings. Even worse, children have big feelings over what seem to be rather inconsequential things.

Psychologists call it "learned helplessness". People just call it "it is what it is". Both terms describe the same phenomenon: the exhaustion that comes from trying to maintain the belief that their efforts matter.

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.

More than ten years ago, I received a book for my birthday. The message inside the gift said: The Bible is the Lord's love letter to humankind. I give you this book with the hope that the reply mankind gave to God will also nourish your soul. Happy birthday! And, indeed, so it was.

Along with the rising death toll due to coronavirus complications, a usually latent aspect of our fear becomes harder to ignore. Despite the fact that it is the only certainty we all share, realising that our own end is a reality we might need to confront sooner than we had thought leaves many of us fervently searching for consolation.

The prevailing message in the context of the pandemic was clear, but also disturbing: "Don't go out! Stay home! Work from home!" But what about those who do not have a home?

In the whole array of virtues that a stepparent must possess in order to succeed in raising a well-rounded child whose world has been shattered by the separation of his or her parents, courage is only mentioned in passing. Yet courage is the foundation of a construction that promises to be challenging from the outset, say those who have plunged into the role...

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

The Caribbean has long been considered paradise by many tourists. For many of those living there, however, the images of lofty palm trees, white sandy beaches and crystal-clear waters mask an underbelly of drug running, gang-related violence and prostitution. Human trafficking is an issue many nations are struggling to cope with, and the Caribbean island of Trinidad is no different.

I grew up on an unpaved, quaint side street in Ploiești, Romania. After school or during summer vacations my neighbours, M. and C., and I were an inseparable trio. We were almost always outdoors. If it wasn't too hot or raining, you could find us in one of our backyards.

In a society that is more concerned with form than substance, character ranks second. It is the power of the image that dictates things.

Seeing a team care for remote villages in the Solomon Islands showed me how small donations can make a real big difference.

Plato may have been one of the first to think this way, but in modern sociology it was Walter Lippmann who made history with the idea that people do not have access to reality in all its complexity, but operate on images of that reality that they construct for themselves.

11pm and I am worried my patient will not make it till tomorrow morning, says Dr Glenn Wakam. Twelve hours after intubation, the COVID-19 patient's condition deteriorates dramatically, and Wakam knows that an even more difficult intervention follows: to explain to the patient's wife, who begs to be allowed to say goodbye, that the hospital does not allow her this sad privilege.