Social

Sometimes I think I was born with a magnifying glass in my hand, one through which I critically scrutinize everything I do and say and which relentlessly magnifies every imperfection.

There are many reasons why your daily interactions may become tense and even fractured, but if you decide to mend a relationship, you could also take a few extra steps to improve it.

If there was a theme that could be attributed to the 2022 World Cup more than any other, it’s “murky ethics”. If you’ve got mixed feelings about this year’s edition of the prestigious 92-year-old tournament, you’re likely not alone.

The promise to live with our loved one “until death do us part" has gradually lost its meaning. Today, it is considered unrealistic to get married with the idea that the relationship will last forever.

A seemingly endless stream of needy causes compete for our attention and money every day. Our emails, mailboxes and phones are bombarded by charities asking for generous donations to help.

Fundamentalist movements, extremist and sectarian religious beliefs, manipulations of the mass of believers, conspiracy theories within religious sects, and other such threats, emphasise the need for critical thinking.

"Loneliness irritates me like a broken nail," says a line in a Romanian poem. The truth is, loneliness stings, pulls apart, and resembles the coffee dregs left at the bottom of the pot in which joy and love once brewed. Although the fear of loneliness is natural, we can choose to see solitude as something more than a "flowering wilderness" and embrace it...

Growing up, a fixture of my childhood was the iconic Aussie summer. I spent many of my early years either indoors with the air conditioning turned up full-blast, or swimming in our local watering hole. The scorching sun was a constant, with days of humid weather on the east coast or dry, oven-like temperatures in the west.

Over the last decade and a half, various legal disputes have brought to the attention of the public the issue of the social responsibility of Big Tech companies to control the flow of information on their channels. But in mid-January 2021, people of all ideological colours had indisputable proof that the decisions of technology giants have ramifications that go far beyond the commercial...

In terms of short-term benefits to one's reputation, or monetary benefits, the illusion of deceit is intoxicating. But, in the long run, both from an individual and a social perspective, the negative effects of deceitful behaviours should be convincing enough in order to deter any and all from engaging in them.

There are no small acts of kindness in times of peace, let alone in times of war. It is a simple truth, which I have rediscovered these days, observing the acts of kindness made by the Adventist Church volunteers helping the refugees from Ukraine, and the reverberations that this help—which has become the epicentre of a great need—has had.

The song, “People Get Ready” was inspired by Martin Luther King Jr’s march on Washington and his “I have a dream” speech. In writing it the following year (1964), Curtis Mayfield not only captured the spirit of the march but created a song that caught the mood of the times and injected hope: “There’s a train a-comin’… . You don’t need no ticket,...

In some African communities, during the harsh dry season when food becomes scarce and mothers can no longer feed all their children, a tragic custom persists: some children are left in open-air enclosures to die of starvation.

Things happen anyway, whether good or bad. Why put extra effort into trying to respond positively when certain things happen? Why be grateful?

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.