I Am

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that. "
- Martin Luther King

I Am, a film released in February of 2011 which documents the personal journey of it's creator, film maker Tom Shadyac, originally set out to pose two practical and provocative questions: what’s wrong with our world, and what can we do to make it better? Shadyac intended to investigate how he as an individual, and we as a race, could improve "the way we live and walk in the world." 

But the story behind the movie is heart warming as well as a wonderful lesson in positive thinking.





In 2007 Shadyac suffered an injury that changed his life forever. A bike accident left him with a condition whereby the symptoms of a serious concussion did not go away. All kinds of traditional and alternative treatments failed. He began thinking he was not going to live. Confronting his own mortality, he wondered what his last statement as a movie producer might be. He thought and thought, and finally determined that he was not going to die without pursuing an answer to the question "What is wrong with the world, and what can we do to change it?" Out of all his thought and research, the concept for I Am was born.

Those of us who are positive thinkers will not be surprised to learn that at the same time Shadyac became so focused and determined not to die before he accomplished his goal, his symptoms began to recede allowing him to travel and use his movie-making skills to explore the questions that now haunted him, and to communicate his findings in a humorous yet intellectual and emotional film. The irony is that Shadyac was not the typical purveyor of messages - he was the creator of entertaining, silly films that made money (most widely known are his films Ace Ventura, Pet Detective, The Nutty Professor, Liar Liar, and Bruce Almighty.) 

Shadyac met with a variety of thinkers from the worlds of science, philosophy, academia, and faith. Among those he interviewed were such luminaries as David Suzuki, Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Lynne McTaggart, Ray Anderson, John Francis, Coleman Barks, and Marc Ian Barasch. He discovered that, contrary to conventional thinking, cooperation and not competition may be nature’s most fundamental operating principle which suggests that the basis of Nature is cooperation and democracy. The movie shows that consensus decision-making is the norm amongst many species, from insects and birds to deer and primates. The film also demonstrates that humans actually function better and remain healthier when expressing positive emotions such as love, care, compassion, and gratitude, versus their negative counterparts, anxiety, frustration, anger and fear.

The movie was recommended to me, but the impact that the whole story had on me was completely unexpected. The story behind the movie reveals that even without intentionally devoting a moment's effort to healing himself, Shadyac was so consumed with thoughts of the better good that his symptoms began to disappear. Here was a man who thought he was dying and essentially thought to himself, "Not yet, buster. You need to fix the world first!" Such determination is essential to successful positive thinking which is why I am sharing this marvelous example on the blog.  In this case Shadyac did not begin with the intent of fixing himself by thinking positively.  Far from it. He ignored his own symptoms (stopped thinking about them) and focused on a far bigger positive goal.

In the western world the heart has been inextricably linked to our emotions, the mind, the soul, and our very being since antiquity. Both the ancient Egyptians and Greeks considered the heart -- not the brain -- to be the source of our thought, feeling, and will.  The movie demonstrates that the heart contains an intelligence and shows that it actually passes information to the brain in the form of electrical impulses contained between those associated with the normal heartbeats. We tend to label love, care, gratitude and compassion as positive because of the way in which they affect our bodies. This effect can actually be seen on a person's EKG monitor when they are hugged by a person they love. No surprise then that the heart is the symbol of love. But on the other hand, if our heart is sending a stressful message pattern, it actually inhibits our brain and we can't think as clearly. Hence we tend to do something stupid out of anger when we are feeling stressed. As we have discussed, words you say to another human have an effect.  But wait until you see the effect of a simple hug has on two hearts.

I think the movie is fascinating and has a basis in sound science and reasoning - definitely a feel-good experience. I found it available on www.vudu.com. Please see the movie trailer below.