Directed by Graça Castanheira • Documentary • With Karen Armstrong • 2013 • 30 minutes

Ten personalities from diverse social and geographical backgrounds reflect on the world and its future. A portrait in multiple voices of contemporary reality, revealing the deep connections that exist between our mental models and the consequences thereof in our present day—for the individual, for life, and for the planet. A series of lessons about our time and the way we live in it.

Episode 5 stars Karen Armstrong, the UK author of A 'History of God', where she states that there is one common trait in all forms of spirituality: compassion.

Born in 1944 in Wildemoore, England. Among many other books she is the author of A History of God, in which she presents a comparative study of the three monotheistic religions. Karen Armstrong states that we can find one common trait in all forms of spirituality: compassion. Karen Armstrong identifies compassion as the common trait of different religions and sees suffering as a creational force. According to the English writer, suffering is something we all share, at the very least because of our common mortal condition, which, by itself, should be enough to enable us to understand the pain of others. Today, more than ever, the world needs compassion and putting ourselves in the other’s place has become an ethical imperative. However, it is not enough to believe in this “golden rule”: we need to apply it, and find creative ways of making an ethic of compassion possible.