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The Zeitgeist for the first decade of the year 2000 promises to be the question: "How to lead a meaningful and significant life? What is my reason for being?" These are crucial questions which hold the motivational key to our every attitude and behaviour. If the new technologies have been the most dominant feature of the 1990s, individuals have started to reflect upon what on earth they want all that speed-of-light information for in the first place. Because so many of the traditional rule-books and route-maps to life are now outdated or discredited, there is a pervasive fear that our lives will be trivial, and we yearn for some clear cause, some worthy battle that is greater than ourselves. (A key theme in The Star Wars Trilogy; The Sixth Sense; Good Will Hunting; Toy Story 1 & 2; Titanic; Saving Private Ryan; Independence Day; and Armageddon.)

We want to discover some extra dimension to life, whether Mother Nature, Information Technology, a government conspiracy on a massive scale, Alien Beings, or even Good and Evil. In the vacuum left by the shrinking influence of formal religion, there is a longing for some 'unseen factor' that is just below the surface. (A key theme in Men in Black; Independence Day; Enemy of the State; The X-Files; Twister; Jurassic Park; The Matrix; The Blair Witch Project; and The Sixth Sense.)

We need to have a satisfying public role in life so as to bring us an affirming sense of identity: Ever-popular are films and TV shows, fiction and non-fiction, that focus on the emergency and helping professions and other high-action, high-profile occupations that have broad public appeal. (A key theme in ER; Good Will Hunting; Saving Private Ryan; and The Sixth Sense.)

There has been a rejection of films that sell aggression, malevolence or amorality, because our real life is quite difficult enough. Consequently, in the last couple of years, films that have peddled gratuitous horror or amorality have done poorly at the box office. (For example: I Know What You Did Last Summer 2; Cruel Intentions; Fight Club; Go; and Happiness.)

There is widespread championing of 'the individual', no matter how humble that person. (A key theme in The Wedding Singer; The Full Monty; Titanic; Notting Hill; The Simpsons; Toy Story 1 & 2; American Beauty; Saving Private Ryan; Forrest Gump; and Titanic.) Hand in glove with this sentiment goes a diminishing sense of interest or allegiance in anything political, national, community or institutional.

'Pleasing yourself' and the search for personal happiness, is regarded as a highly legitimate goal. This is closely allied to introspection which is very much in fashion, only there is considerable uncertainty about what the building blocks of happiness and fulfillment might be. (A key theme in Antz; Good Will Hunting; American Beauty; and The Beach.) It seems that reckless fun is only a temporary response to worry and pressure, rather than a genuine bid for happiness. No one believes in the merits of taking instant gratification, it's just that we feel forced into it by circumstances.

Compassion for the underdog, the 'nerd', the 'misfit', is on the rise as we become increasingly aware of our own soft underbelly. However, owning up to our fragility strikes very close to home, and is best broached with lots of humour.. (A key theme in Forrest Gump; Austin Powers; American Pie; Something About Mary; The Simpsons; and American Beauty.)

We are attracted to larger-than-life personalities, or someone bravely reaffirming their identity. We gravitate towards those people who seem comfortable inside their skins, and who are enjoying themselves. (Key themes in Austin Powers: the spy who shagged me, and American Beauty, respectively.) Such out and out eccentricity is a refreshing contrast to how we feel most of the time.

There are demoralising inequities in the social rewards for one job compared to another: Every day, we read about the £10 million per annum 21 year old soccer star, or the dot-com millionaire aged 25. What does this say about our society's appreciation of the £25,000 per year Secondary School Teacher who just turned 30?

Sons desperately crave the support of their fathers, and related to this is a major psychological need for Male Mentors, probably because young guys are finding it harder to progress from adolescence to respectable manhood in a social and economic climate that seems stacked against them. (A key theme in Men in Black; Enemy of The State; The Matrix; Good Will Hunting; and The Sixth Sense.)

Enduring friendships are paramount in our lives. In reaction to the ever more pressured and complex world, qualities such as listening and caring and "won't let you down" are becoming increasingly appealing traits, and are fast competing with or even overtaking the attractiveness of 'cool, beautiful, clever and self-contained'. For the great majority of individuals, it has been the companionship enjoyed during significant periods of time spent with friends and lovers that have made them most glad to be alive; and it is the memory and hope of such intimate relationships with particular people and places, that is fundamentally important to them. (A key theme in Good Will Hunting; X-Files; Shakespeare in Love; Notting Hilll; and Toy Story.)

In a virtual age when so much is seen and so little done, we crave the intimacy of physical and sexual contact. And in an information age that threatens to drown emotion, we crave the intimacy of romance. (Romantic & sexual expression are key themes in Titanic; Shakespeare in Love; Notting Hill; American Pie; and American Beauty.) Whether you can risk having a sexual relationship with your all-important friends, is a major dilemma.

Certain personality traits are universally attractive: Men and women alike are very attracted to humour, thoughtfulness, passion for what you do, direction and self-motivated ambition, feeling comfortable with yourself, ability to enjoy yourself and be happy, and taking more interest in other people than yourself. (In fact, all those things we suspect ourselves of lacking, because under today's pressures we feel neurotic, cowardly, dull, directionless, exhausted, miserable, and self-obsessed.)

Certain physical traits are universally attractive: If you're a women, it's not boobs, bums, thighs or blonde hair that are the keys to your attractiveness; if you're a guy it's not big muscles. For both sexes, it's your eyes, smiles and voice which are your most attractive features once anyone's gone beyond the first five minutes with you - probably because your eyes, voice and smile say so much about you, and about how you regard the person with whom you're talking. We might fantasise about being drop-dead gorgeous, but just about everyone would happily settle for feeling confident within their body and being fit and toned.

There has been a marked increase in sexual relationships between young women in their late teens and early twenties. There is now a generation of high-flying, hot-shot young women professionals in their early and mid twenties whose glamorous job status makes them highly attractive to slightly younger but equally ambitious women. These lesbian affairs do not exclude heterosexual relationships, which very often run in parallel.

For the past few years, there has been a male counter-attack against the more extreme manifestations of feminism and Political Correctness. Young men are eager to gain back just a little ground in the battle for equality, and their greatest weapon is humour provided liberally by relaunched magazines and new movies. (A key theme in Loaded and FHM magazines; and Austin Powers; South Park; the Simpsons; and Something about Mary.)

We want to laugh at ourselves and our society - because although we may be slaves to the system, we ain't fooled by it. (This would explain the universal success of the affectionately self-recriminating cultural satires of authors Bill Bryson and Helen Fielding; and the screen comedies such as American Pie, Austin Powers, South Park and The Simpsons.)

Young people hanker for more emotionally expressive cultures, with less stress on educational and career success. Hence, travel has become a key touchstone for the 'care-free independence and escape' so sought-after. (A key theme in The Beach.)

A nostalgia for the mythical heydays of the 20th century. This nostalgia is born largely of a fear of, or even despair in, the future. The past, whether real or imagined, offers a sense of security and comfort. Many of us would dearly like to travel back in time so as to guide younger versions of ourselves in more fulfilling directions. Maybe then, our present predicament could be avoided. (This nostalgic time travel is a key theme in Austin Powers; Titanic; and The Sixth Sense.)