i am

There is a great documentary out that I think everyone would like, even if you're not into documentaries. It was directed by Tom Shadyac, a name I was not familiar with. Yet the titles of his movies Ace Ventura, Liar Liar, The Nutty Professor, Patch Adams, Bruce Almighty, etc were all familiar to me.

I probably wouldn't have heard of this film if it weren't for my Netflix "suggestions for you" page. The trailer looked amazing so I put it on top of my queue. I was blown away after watching it and watched it again two days later. I hated to return it and have decided to buy it. It's a keeper of a movie.

The film centers on the result of a life-changing experience Tom Shadyac had. After a serious bicycle accident, he developed a form off post-concussion depression, making him question his whole life and taking away his will to live. One day the depression inexplicably left him and he decided to grab a crew of 4 people and scout the world for the greatest scientists and other great thinkers to find out "[w]hat is wrong with our world and what can we do about it." The result is I AM.

The initial part of the film (his great success is Hollywood, the accident, depression, etc) only takes about the first five minutes. The rest is dedicated to interviewing others. Some of the more recognizable names are Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, and Desmond Tutu.

Some of the themes he focuses on are the following: whether humans are, by nature, competitive or cooperative; how science has proven we are actually connected to others; and whether our hearts or brains are the real center of our selves.

It sounds a little heavy and/or New-Agey. It's not. In fact, it's quite entertaining and the viewer rides the movie like a surfer on a wave. It's all backed by science, which makes it all the more mind blowing. And it's just fun to watch! Can't beat that combo!

One of the amazing things that stuck with me was that our vagus nerve is what makes us connect to all other living things. If you've ever watched those videos of returning soldiers surprising their children with their return, you probably felt great emotion at watching them, quite possibly tearing up. (They make me cry every single time.) The vagus nerve makes us empathize with others and want to help them. The documentary shows many examples of people reaching out to others.

While it's not an animal rights movie, the evidence garnered from his talks with these great thinkers all point to a compassionate lifestyle. The vegus nerve, for example, would explain why so many people don't want to know where their meat comes from. Why people get distraught at even the mention of the conditions of animals farmed for their flesh or their skins. Because our very nature is to empathize with the pain of others, and we don't want to think that our actions cause this pain in others. So most of us avoid it altogether, viewing it as Pandora's Box. Because once it's open, you can't turn back. You can't stuff it away. You have to look at it and make new choices. And "new" to many people is scary and overwhelming. (If that's you, please see babysteps.)

A great quote from one of the interviewees (I forgot to write down who said it):

"All of life is our biological kin. To me, the most amazing thing about the Human Genome Project was that it turns out over 99% of the genes in a human being are identical to the genes in our nearest relatives, the Great Apes. That the vast majority of genes in ourselves are identical to the genes in our pet dogs and cats  ... They are our relatives."

As far as changing our world to treat animals the way we'd want to be treated, consider the words of Desmond Tutu, (delivered with that wide smile and wonderful, lilting voice)

"How does change happen? It happens because you are concerned. And you are concerned. And you are concerned. And you have a coordination that becomes this movement. And it overcomes apartheid."

Rollin Mccraty, who works at HeartMath, notes, "What we do at the individual level really does affect the global environment."

So here is the trailer for the film.

And here is an interview with Tom Shadyac on the making of the movie. And I'm not going to ruin the fun for you, but you MUST watch it, if only to see the yogurt experiment and what scientists discovered when they observed a herd of Red Deer.

After doing a little research for this post, I found that Oprah had done an interview with Tom when the film came out. You can read about that here.

I hope you treat yourselves soon and watch this! I'm told it's On Demand and also showing on OWN. And, as I mentioned before, you can get it on Netflix.

After you've seen it, I'd love to hear your thoughts below! Nobody I know (except for Ryan and my friend Jack and his fiance) have seen it and I'm just dying to talk about it with others! Enjoy!

To Kill A Mockingbird

Do you have a book (or books) that has such a special place in your heart that just the cover makes you feel happy and at peace? One of my all-time favorites, and one I consider a summer read, is To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.

I first discovered the story in my grandmother's musty, organized cellar when I was about 14 or 15 years old. The cellar, as I recall, would stay delightfully cool on those humid New England summer days. There was a very narrow staircase leading down to the cellar  -- you always had to duck to make sure you didn't hit your head on the stairway ceiling -- and the walls of the staircase itself were made into bookshelves lined with beloved paperbacks that she couldn't fit into the built-in bookshelves in her office. (That same office was always filled with, it seemed, dozens of fascinating projects she was always in the middle of ... but that's a story for another day.) It was in this creaky staircase that I discovered Gerald Durrell's My Family and Other Animals (classic!), Jean Webster's Daddy Long-Legs, and L.M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables (Modern Library Classics). But as much as I loved all of these books, none has had quite the staying power of To Kill a Mockingbird.

I reread this story always in the summer and it seems to age like fine wine. The truths in it become deeper the older I get. But the incredible genius of the book is how the author manages to tap right into what it was like being a child in the summer and how that child looks at the world around her and addresses some heady topics from the point of view of that time. It's so stark and perfect, and I never tire of reading it.

My last day of school this year was a Thursday and I had signed the book out of the library a few days earlier so I could take it to California. Early Friday morning after packing up my classroom for the summer, I left Massachusetts with Ryan for my sister-in-law's elegant wedding in Yosemite. After our plane took off and I had a quick nap, I took out To Kill a Mockingbird-- with what can only be described as summer giddiness -- and began to fall right back into the tale of Scout and her overall-ed world.

Atticus, Scout, Jem, Dill, Boo .... they were all so real. I don't think there is a greater character in history than the quiet and loving Atticus. Interestingly enough, many of those characters were based on real people and experiences in Harper Lee's life. Here's a little ditty from Wikipedia:

Many details of To Kill a Mockingbird are apparently autobiographical. Like Lee, the tomboy (Scout) is the daughter of a respected small-town Alabama attorney. The plot involves a legal case, the workings of which would have been familiar to Lee, who studied law. Scout's friend Dill was inspired by Lee's childhood friend and neighbor, Truman Capote,^[7] while Lee is the model for a character in Capote's first novel, Other Voices, Other Rooms.

Harper Lee has downplayed autobiographical parallels. Yet Truman Capote, mentioning the character Boo Radley in To Kill a Mockingbird, described details he considered biographical: "In my original version of Other Voices, Other Rooms I had that same man living in the house that used to leave things in the trees, and then I took that out. He was a real man, and he lived just down the road from us. We used to go and get those things out of the trees. Everything she wrote about it is absolutely true. But you see, I take the same thing and transfer it into some Gothic dream, done in an entirely different way."

The reason I bring all this up, though, is a passage I came across that really hit home with where I am right now. While everyone in my life has been so kind and accommodating with my new eating habits -- I've been truly touched at the effort others have made to make sure there is vegan fare available at gatherings -- I  know the concept of not killing animals or eating their secretions is very odd to most and difficult to understand. Even though I know I'm doing right by the animals, there are times when I tire of being seen as "weird," when in my mind I'm simply being nice.

So here's the little nugget that I just love. Scout is talking to her father, Atticus, about defending an innocent man that most people in the town are condemning as guilty because he is African-American.

"Atticus, you must be wrong..."
"How's that?"
"Well, most folks seem to think they're right and you're wrong ..."
"They're certainly entitled to think that, and they're entitled to full respect for their opinions," said Atticus, "but before I can live with other folks I've got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience."

Gotta love her style. I find myself reflecting on this passage a lot lately, particularly when I'm in a challenging situation.

I won't ruin the ending if you've never read it, but the very last scene (and last paragraph!) makes me tear up every. single. time. If you haven't read it, you have a wonderful experience waiting for you!

I'll leave you with two videos. The first is a great scene between Scout and Jem from the movie, an excellent rendition of the book. The second is a lighthearted playful video by Sassy Gay Friend that will make sense when you get to the end! (Though it may not make sense if you've never read The Giving Tree or To Kill A Mockingbird...) If you haven't seen any of the other Sassy Gay Friend videos, check them out on YouTube. They're a riot!