“I Am”

I Am

2011NR 1hr 17m

Average rating: 4.173

Average of 98,080 ratings: 4.2 stars

In this contemplative documentary, filmmaker Tom Shadyac conducts in-depth interviews with prominent philosophers and spiritual leaders — including Archbishop Desmond Tutu — about what ails the world and how to improve it.

I Am (2010 American documentary film) — wiki

I Am is a 2010 American documentary film written, narrated, and directed by Tom Shadyac. The documentary explores Shadyac’s personal journey after a 2007 bicycle accident, “the nature of humanity”[1] and “world’s ever-growing addiction to materialism.”[2] The film, shot with Shadyac and a team of four,[3] contrasts sharply with Shadyac’s previous comedic work.

In the film, Shadyac conducts interviews with scientists, religious leaders, environmentalists and philosophers including Desmond Tutu, Noam Chomsky, Lynne McTaggart, Elisabet Sahtouris, David Suzuki, Howard Zinn, and Thom Hartmann. The film asks two central questions:[8] What’s Wrong With the World? and What Can We Do About it? It is about “human connectedness, happiness, and the human spirit”,[3] and explores themes including Darwinism, Western mores, loneliness, the economy, and the drive to war. The documentary includes animated scenes explaining scientific concepts,[6] as well as clips from the films Wall Street and It’s a Wonderful Life.[9]

What are you? What are you going to be?



The Art of Pleasure -04 Gratitude

Evening-on-the-BeachHow much do you really appreciate being alive? I believe deep down no one wants to die, even for those who are suicidal — they just don’t want to deal with the seemingly endless pain. And people derive pain from so many things, for so many different reasons. But for those in pain, there is always a way out, though that path could be hard to find. So, pay close attention to yourself, your stress and your frustrations. Take care of your physical and emotional needs before it turns into pissy personality.

How grateful are you when you think about the fact that you were given a chance to be alive, as a human, almost by accident? When you truly value a gift given to you, how do you enjoy that gift? And how big is this Gift of Life compared to all the precious gifts you have ever received over the years?

If you think of life as a gift, and willing to consider that the giver – let’s not give names here — intended on equally benefiting all that has been created, you would know that the true sin is to waste the gift given to you – allowing your soul to suffer; or to do harm to the rest of that Creation. The Intention for the Creation is encoded in the Creation itself, proven and reassured by the state of prosperity resulting from different actions. There really is no way to defeat the Creation. If we mess it up here on Earth, we would only parish and proven us to be unworthy, and the Creation would just show the Magic elsewhere. We are simply not that important. So don’t expect the Balance of the Universe to be manipulated and disrupted just to ensure our survival or pleasure. And if we do wrong to ourselves, we suffer, or we die. So it is in fact very easy to read the Intention of the Creation: Be happy, and be helpful to others.

There are so many religious teaching telling you that Life is Pain, Suffer, Messy, … All true, almost. But the outlook really doesn’t have to be so grim. All the pain, suffering and messiness are to guide us to find our true Happiness, like the walls of a tunnel. The purpose of the walls are to tell you which way not to go – not just there to hurt you repeatedly. It is your own fault if you insist on running into it thinking that’s the way you have to go. So. Which way do you really want to go?

Each life event can almost always be interpreted in more than one way, with more than one layer of implication. It is our reaction to our interpretation that determines which way we are going to turn. And that, combined with the setting of the environment we are in, leads to the next event. Then, we would be given another chance to choose, to alter, and to redirect our future. If the next event holds a better picture, and make us happier, we are moving along the right direction. And if the next event doesn’t get better, it is time to stop and think. What’s the other possibility that seemed impossible? Is this event truly a worse event?

Think about how you can make yourself happy, for now and forever. If each choice were made with careful thinking, putting the environment and future into consideration, the next event would more likely be a better one. The range of our attention that we base our decision on, let’s call it the Consideration Bubble, determines the likelyhood of our next movement going towards the Right direction. The larger the Consideration Bubble is, the more likely the next event is going to go better.

When a person loses temper and fiercely defends a certain matter, the Consideration Bubble is almost skintight. The result, almost no way out. The better solution would be expanding the Consideration Bubble. Suddenly, the sky opens up. And when we can see more, and realize the benefit and purpose of our suffering, the suffering becomes joy. Knowing that our action and weight bearing is in fact setting us up for something better, we’ll have better direction, and could give more devotion. Then, things start to get better, faster.

If we practice on making choices for future benefit, we become much more willing to sacrifice. A lot of mothers are in that mode, for example. At the same time, where is the balance that we mothers don’t sacrifice so much that our own life becomes an experience of suffering? Remember, our children not only learn from our teaching, and more importantly they learn from our Feeling. Balance is the key.

Children have the ability to imitate an emotion of their adult without the physical trigger. Oftentimes, their emotional reaction to that event could be enormously larger than what an adult would perceive, because they often feel much less in control. Anxiety is often the re-experience of the intense emotional reaction to some related thoughts. That unpleasant feeling from the childhood makes people wanting to run away. But the more one tries to avoid it, the more often it would pop up at the worst moment. Life tumbles down the hill from there on, when the monster is thought to have grown bigger. How to redirect that mind-body connection? How can one sever that link? I believe that the Orgasmic Healing has the ultimate power, a forced ‘positive association’ might be the solution to help with seemingly impossible cases of Anxiety. But, don’t play with the fire if you don’t know what you are doing. You may get sucked into the whirlpool and taking a wild ride that you are not prepared for. Maintaining a balanced view is the key.


Only a balanced path can be a long lasting path. When we are moving towards the Happy direction, Happiness cumulates. And when we turn towards Unhappiness, our soul suffer.

People have a natural tendency to turn towards Happiness, if one is uninhibited, if they have the control over everything. Unfortunately, that’s not how we were wired. Since our infancy, we learned to please our environment before pleasing ourselves, because we need to be fed. That was the right way when we were little. But after we’ve grown up, where should the balance be?

To find the balancing point, you could measure the result with how you feel, and how long can you stand feeling this way before wanting to change again. Many people consider themselves reasonably happy, and then stop their thinking right there. They are afraid that if they dig further, their state of happiness is going to change. Well, that only means that you can make yourself even happier, and you just have to let it happen.

Just how profoundly happy are you? You are the only one who is responsible to make yourself happy. It is not a job for your parents, your spouse, your children, your boss, your coworker, your family or your friends. You are the center of your universe. How much longer would you allow your soul to suffer? Where is the way out?