This week, at the suggestion of Happiness expert Barbara Yager, I watched the documentary film I Am directed by Tom Shadyac. I strongly recommend it to anyone who wants to make our world a better place.
If Tom Shadyac’s name seems familiar it’s because he’s
directed numerous slapstick comedies including the Jim Carrey smash hits Ace
Ventura: Pet Detective, Bruce Almighty, and Liar Liar. Shadyac directed Eddie
Murphy in The Nutty Professor as well as Robin Williams in Patch Adams. He also directed Accepted,
and I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry.
But a few years ago, Shadyac shifted his talents and
focus 180 degrees -- away from those multi-million dollar blockbuster movies to
the abstract and esoteric questions “What’s wrong
with the world and “What’s right with
the world?”
A serious biking accident triggered the radical change
in Shadyac’s thinking, values and approach to life. He transitioned from one of
Hollywood’s most successful writer/director/producers to a more serious student
of life who could use his fame, fortune and film-making skills to ponder such
enigmatic questions. The result of his world search for answers is captured
beautifully in his documentary, I Am.
Shadyac’s research for meaningful answers to these
complex questions took him around the world and back home to Malibu,
California. Shadyac discovered that he
is what’s wrong – or right – with the world. Thus, the title of his
documentary, I Am.
Shadyac pays attribution to Lord Chesterfield, the
popular British statesman who lived in the 18th century. It was Lord
Chesterfield who was once asked the question, “What’s wrong with the world?” Chesterfield
famously replied, “I am.” Tom Shadyac’s research
for a meaningful answer to this important question took him back some 260 years
to Lord Chesterfield and the very same question Chesterfield was asked around
1740.
While our world is more complex today than in the
1700s, the relationship between mankind and our connectivity to all living
things is no different now than it was centuries ago. Nor, as Shadyac
discovers, is humanity’s need to cooperate with and love our fellow man. While
Shadyac has dispensed with the trappings of his fame and fortune, and now lives
simply and teaches at a California university, he freely admits that it’s a
very difficult transformation for anyone living in a consumer-oriented,
capitalistic society to forego our ego needs and, instead, focus on our
spiritual needs and live simply.
Of course, this is the same decision all the great
prophets and teachers have made. Perhaps, Tom Shadyac’s new philosophy is best
captured by one of our greatest teachers, Mahatma Gandhi, who counseled us to "Live simply so that others may simply live."
