Analysis

In one sense, it was hardly an unusual story: a big-budget Hollywood war movie with a big-name director and famous actors, featuring long and ultra-violent action sequences, with heroes and enemies.

During my adolescence, a Swiss author, Erich von Daniken, made waves with his theories about extra-terrestrial influences on early mankind. His most important book was called Memories of the Future. Of course, his ideas have no support today, but the idiom remains: memories of the future. Something from the past says something about what is to come.

Fines, military ordinances, police and army patrolling the streets – this is the reality we have suddenly found ourselves living in. It is a tightening reality, a rigid corset-like structure of rules.

An old saying states: "If youth knew; if age could". This truth is reflected by countless studies showing that lifestyle adjustments made in middle age (or even earlier) favour a transition to a healthier old age.

Following several surveys (1988, 1991, 2009), the Gallup organisation revealed both good news and bad news. The good news is that 94 percent of people believe forgiveness is very important. The bad news is that 85 percent admit they are not ready to do it on their own.

When war kills not one but three of your children, what is there left besides hatred?

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.

Although we experience more positive than negative elements in life, we are still more intensely and more quickly affected by the unpleasant ones. How can we protect our joy of living despite the problems that beset us?

Our daily habits and actions constitute our state of mind. However, few people know that we hold great power over our own thoughts. Developing this power could pave the way for happiness.

As Christians we are interested in a perpetual spiritual, moral, general human perfecting. But can we really succeed without perfecting our way of thinking, our capacity to understand, and thus without increasing our intellectual capital?

Broken blade. Shaking hands. Clouded mind. “I could have killed him.”

We have introduced so much carbon dioxide into nature's operating system that we no longer know "what is an act of God and what is an act of man" when it comes to natural disasters striking with increasing frequency and overwhelming power, says Nathan Lewis, a chemistry and energy specialist at the California Institute of Technology.

It is said that the intelligent and cynical Talleyrand, a French diplomat and Catholic priest who was later secularised, said to Napoleon when asked to devise a political message: "Sir, give me the idea and I'll find the arguments myself..." If such an intellectual attitude is cynical and unscrupulous in politics, let's imagine the consequences in the religious sphere.

When we were kids, we were experts at finding new hobbies.

At night, the main boulevard in Las Vegas is so crowded that in order to move forward you actually have to push your way through the motley crowd. People of all kinds fill the space already suffocated by the construction conglomerate, which is equally diverse.