Film proves We Are all connected ("I Am")

Rob Sidon LA Yoga (March 2011)

"I Am" is Hollywood humorist-producer-writer-director Tom Shadyac's most passionate project after working with Buddhist Jim Carrey.

LA YOGA: How would you describe the film?

TOM SHADYAC: My hope is that "I Am" is a window into Truth, a glimpse into the miracle, the mystery and magic of who we really are, and of the basic nature of the connection and unity of all things. In a way, I think of "I Am" as the ultimate reality show.

LA YOGA: You made the film to answer two fundamental questions.

TOM: Yes: What's wrong with the world? And what can we do about it? And when I say what's wrong with the world, I didn't want to hear the usual answers like war, hunger, poverty, the environmental crisis, or even greed.

• "I Am" premieres March 8 at the Hollywood Arclight

These to me are not the problem; they are symptoms of a larger endemic problem. In "I Am," I wanted to talk about the root cause of the ills of the world, attempt to identify it, because if there is a common cause and we can talk about it, air it out in the public forum, then we have a chance to solve it.

Until then, we are like doctors who keep prescribing medication to treat our collective nausea when what we need is the wisdom to ask ourselves what we're ingesting in the first place that is making us all sick.

LA YOGA: One reason I enjoyed the film is that its underlying message is so positive -- that human beings are not hardwired as selfish creatures. You turn to scientists to explain.

TOM: Well, I was raised Catholic, so this is not exactly the message I was taught growing up. I was told I was born bad, burdened with something called "original sin," and that all mankind was similarly infected.

It was a revelation to me that for tens of thousands of years, indigenous cultures taught a very different story about our inherent goodness, which is being backed by the sciences now.

We are discovering a plethora of evidence about our hard wiring for connection and compassion, from the vagus nerve, which releases oxytocin [the love and empathy hormone] at simply witnessing a compassionate act, to the mirror neurons, which cause us to literally feel another person's pain and thereby empathize.

Darwin himself, who has been grossly misunderstood to believe exclusively in our competitiveness (hence the famous saying "survival of the fittest"), actually observed and noted that humankind's real power comes in its ability to perform complex tasks together -- that is, to sympathize and cooperate.

LA YOGA: To exemplify the essence of "I Am," you set up an experiment. Can you explain it and say why it's important?

TOM: The experiment in the movie's just a demonstration and not scientific at all, but it does suggest something that is incredible if it's true -- that our thoughts and emotions affect the living systems around us.

• See this month's free issue of LA Yoga magazine for the entire sit down interview by Rob Sidon.

"I Am" is a prismatic and probing exploration of our world, what's wrong with it, and what we can do to make it better. It represents Tom Shadyac's first foray into non-fiction following a comedy directing career in Hollywood with such films as "Ace Ventura," "Liar Liar," "Bruce Almighty," and many more. "I Am" follows the filmmaker after a cycling accident left him incapacitated, possibly for good. He emerged a changed man. Disillusioned with life on Hollywood's A-list, he sold his house and moved into a humble community, starting life anew. Armed with nothing but curiosity and a camera crew, Shadyac embarks on a journey to discover how we can all improve our lives. Appearing as character, commentator, guide, and even guinea pig, Shadyac meets with a variety of thinkers and doers -- remarkable luminaries from the worlds of science, philosophy, and faith -- including Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, David Suzuki, Lynne McTaggart, Ray Anderson, John Francis, Coleman Barks, and Marc Ian Barasch. An irrepressible Everyman who asks many questions but offers no easy answers, he takes the audience to places it has never been before, and presents even familiar phenomena in radically new ways.

LAYogaMagazine.com