What’s your new year’s resolution for this year? Or are you among those who vow not make resolutions since no one seems to be able to keep them anyway?

I for one do make mental “resolutions” but since I find myself making these resolutions periodically just to see how my “self-improvement projects” are going I don’t really count them to be just my resolution for the new year. I have to admit though that the end and/or start of each year is a time when I am more prone to reflect. The same goes for birthdays, anniversaries, death of a loved one (or even just an acquaintance), and other major life events.

So what is it about such events that triggers our need to think back and evaluate how we live our life? Is it the (re)realization of our mortality? Our frailties? Our shortcomings? Or maybe our hopes?

Whatever it may be the important thing is to keep on striving to improve oneself and one’s life. In the process, hopefully we can also add something positive to those around us and inspire others to change for the better. Let us just not fall into thinking that things can be wiped out like a clean slate but be optimistic that despite shortcomings and negativity in the past we can still make real changes for the better.

Happy New Year everyone and may you find the strategy and motivation that will see your resolutions come true this year!

Year’s end is neither an end nor a beginning but a going on, with all the wisdom that experience can instill in us. ~Hal Borland

I just read one of the most interesting takes on “Avatar”. The movie itself is interesting and entertaining from the CG to the storyline. Ok so interesting and entertaining is actually an understatement, at least compared to my initial reaction – and my second and third. Yes I’ve watched it that many times already and will watch it again if someone asks me to go out to the movies with them!

Anyway what I really wanted to write about is not how cool the movie is but how interesting the philosophy of Randy David, a journalist from the Philippines is. Mr. David mentions briefly the different issues the movie touches on.

In such manner do many of us project our disaffection with our own world (and often with our own selves), and the sense of guilt we feel over its current state. James Cameron’s script is, in many ways, the story of Western colonialism’s plunder and destruction of indigenous societies. It is also a parable on human greed and technological violence.

As he said though that “is only the most obvious level at which the movie may be understood.” He then discusses the concept of the avatar and then somehow twists it around to relate it to Jesus, Nietzsche, Marxism, and of course the concept of faith and belief – a topic that will surely make good fodder for conversation anytime.

For a good philosophical read on “Avatar” you can read the full article “In a World of Avatars” here.