A weary, impoverished worker stands outside in the cold, staring through the window of a warm restaurant. On the other side of the glass, a well-dressed man and woman sit together enjoying their meal. The two worlds are separated by little more than a pane of glass—yet they could hardly feel further apart.


Reflections of a Starving Man (Riflessioni di un affamato), 1894
Also known as Social Contrasts
By Emilio Longoni (1859-1932)

The Last of the Crew (1883)
By Briton Rivière (1840–1920)

A man stands on a frozen expanse of ice, gripping his telescope as though it were the last useful thing he has left. Beside him, a large sled dog lowers its head, while the remaining dogs huddle together behind them. There is no ship in sight, no obvious route to safety, and nothing but ice stretching into the distance.

Death (1902)
By Jacek Malczewski (1854–1929)

Death is standing right in front of him.

And strangely enough, he doesn’t seem afraid.

She comes gently.

The story of Christopher McCandless

Movie: Into the Wild

After graduating from Emory University in Georgia in 1990, McCandless traveled across North America and eventually hitchhiked to Alaska in April 1992. There, he entered the Alaskan bush with minimal supplies, hoping to live simply off the land. On the eastern bank of the Sushana River, McCandless found an abandoned bus, Fairbanks Bus 142, which he used as a makeshift shelter until his death. In September, his body, weighing only 67 pounds (30 kg), was found inside the bus by a hunter. McCandless's cause of death was officially ruled to be starvation, although the exact circumstances relating to his death remain the subject of some debate.

In the January 1993 Outside magazine, Jon Krakauer wrote an article about McCandless. Inspired by the details of McCandless's story, Krakauer published the biography Into the Wild, which was then adapted into a 2007 film directed by Sean Penn, with Emile Hirsch portraying McCandless. On September 29 of that same year, McCandless became the subject of Ron Lamothe's documentary The Call of the Wild.

What if being born was the worst thing that ever happened to you? Romanian philosopher Emil Cioran spent 84 years arguing exactly that, birth is a catastrophe, consciousness is a curse, and non-existence would have been preferable. Yet paradoxically, this man who wrote that "it would be better if nothing existed" lived a full life in Paris, writing obsessively about the impossibility of living. In this video, we explore Cioran's philosophy of non-existence: why consciousness tortures us, how temporal awareness creates suffering, and why he believed procreation is morally wrong. We'll examine his anti-natalist arguments, his obsession with suicide as a philosophical problem, and the central paradox of his life, how someone who despised existence managed to endure it for over eight decades.

Arab Horses Fighting in a Stable
by Eugène Delacroix
(1860)

"La Partida" (The Departure)
by Cuban-Mexican editorial cartoonist Ángel Boligán Corbo