When a deadline approaches and the cursor flashes ominously in your white text document, you suddenly have a thousand things to do. Emails have to be checked, the apartment requires tidying, or the fridge absolutely needs to be filled right now. By the end of the day, you will have done all these things, except for the most important one – which is postponed to the next day. Sounds like the typical idle student, or the daily life of an author who has gotten comfortable. But procrastination has little to do with laziness. After all, you end up doing all kinds of things, just not what you should be doing.

Abolish death, live forever – despite demographic nightmares about an aging society and dwindling resources, the idea of an eternal life is still considered something of a utopia. Wouldn't it be nice to stop the aging process, never have to say goodbye to this world, and instead see it as an infinite space full of unlimited possibilities? Imagine the knowledge we could accrue from an infinite life... But that does not necessarily mean that we would be any happier. After all, even as mortals we already know that immortality offers no guarantee of happiness.

No weapon is more powerful than words. They can hurt us, paralyze us, comfort us, and give us hope, motivate us or carry us away. It is very simple to achieve manipulation merely through your choice of words. Our language even determines how we view the world. After all, someone who describes life as a struggle will obviously judge their environment very differently from someone who speaks of life as a game or a balancing act. No-one is more acutely aware of the power of words than politicians. Ultimately, metaphors can even kill. The linguist George Lakoff is convinced that the term "war on terror" has cost a number of people their lives.