Psychology

"Millions of ordinary, psychologically normal people will face an abrupt collision with the future. Citizens of the world's richest and most technologically advanced nations, many of them will find it increasingly painful to keep up with the incessant demand for change that characterises our time." (Alvin Toffler, Future Shock, 1970)

Many years have passed since I last lived with my brother. Recently, I decided to go and stay with him for a while. One day we both decided to visit a place in nature that neither of us had been to before. When we got there, it started to rain—while not very heavy, rain was not what either of us had wanted. But...

Sartre may have been right when he said Hell is other people. Yet, for some, their first step toward Heaven is meeting the God who shelters in someone else's soul.

Eskimos don't have the word "quarrel" in their vocabulary. They live in a particularly harsh climate, so no one wants to risk getting pneumonia (or dying) just to prove that they are right.

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.

Right at the start of the political thriller, The Post, a scene portrays military analyst Daniel Ellsberg with an empty gaze and a soul burdened by the horrors of the Vietnam war he was forced to document for the United States Department of Defense.

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

"If there is anything more heartbreaking than a body perishing for lack of bread, it is a soul which is dying from hunger for the light." (Victor Hugo)

At some point, we've all come across the phrase "back in my day," a deeply subjective expression which encapsulates a universal phenomenon: the generation gap.

“What is mankind that you make so much of them, that you give them so much attention, that you examine them every morning and test them every moment?” (Job 7:17-18)

When I was a child, I used to take a branch of locust tree and, plucking the leaves one by one, I would say: She loves me… she loves me not… she loves me… she loves me not. I cannot remember who I was thinking of when doing this; too many years have gone by since then. However, the refrain is still very...

Psychologists recommend all sort of things you should have to develop a healthy and strong mind, like tenacity, ambition or optimism. To achieve this objective, however, there are also some things you should avoid.

Isaac and Rebecca, two biblical characters, had problems in their marriage. At first they struggled to fall pregnant. Then, when she eventually got pregnant, it was a difficult pregnancy, which affected them very much—so much so that they didn't know what to do. I suppose they had all sorts of discussions about the situation, but at some point the discomfort just became too...

If optimism helps us get rid of problems more easily, too much optimism does the exact opposite: it amplifies them. Pushed to the extreme, positive thinking prescribed as an antidote to suffering prevents us from accepting reality as it is and starting to look for solutions that can make our lives easier.

The American Economic Review recently published the results of the largest randomized study ever conducted to measure the impact on the quality of life that deactivation ones Facebook account might have.