Psychology

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.

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.

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.

Elspeth Muir’s brother, Alexander, died from drowning. It was 2009, and he had just turned 21. He died from drowning, but his death “was not foreshadowed by his love of water except that it explains why he was near a river, alone, with a blood-alcohol content of almost 0.25. My brother died because he was drunk, and because the drink made him stupid.”

It is as surprising as it is real: negative characters like Dexter Morgan, from the eponymous Dexter, and Walter White, from Breaking Bad, have been cropping up in popular culture more and more often lately. Since when, how, and why have anti-heroes gained so much popularity?

The wisdom of friendship consists in finding those who do not require a price, or ask you to change.

"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)

I notice people, and passionately collect their stories. My favourite stories include those small cracks that allow one to peek inside another soul, those moments when their voice is almost imperceptibly altered, the eyes light up for a reason I do not know, and their gestures are unexpected.

Next to family and health, friends are among the top reasons that make us happy. But what if we are solitary, recluse or shy?

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

They have read that love lasts for two or three years, and although they’ve gathered every possible argument why it wasn't the case for them, they couldn't get the possibility out of their minds altogether.

Created in the image of God, it has become increasingly easy for human beings to forget His image and to reconstruct Him according to their imagination. Our image of God and the way we relate to Him influences every aspect of our lives and affects our psychological well-being.

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...

The TV-series Friends was recently reviewed in The New York Times as “enormously easy to watch”. This characteristic however does not make the show unique, nor can it account for its popularity today, more than 15 years since its final episode.

We are leaving. Even if we were not supposed to, we chose to and it is happening. We are moving again. It is the eighth time in eleven years of marriage.