Philips and Taylor point to important issues of kindness, vulnerability, weakness, and fear. As I was reading, I immediately confronted my long-held beliefs about independence, self-reliance, self-focus, and my often self-punishment in feeling too connected and dependent on people, whether it be my parents, a friend, or a lover. I have personally always battled with complex questions of life, purpose and human nature. On Kindness spoke from a perspective I wasn’t necessarily used too, but a perspective that made sense to me and my life. In foraging societies or even as we trace history, it seems more prevalent that the past is more engulfed in love because the ultimate reality then was mutual belonging, connection, and cooperation with one another. Now, however, with pressures from numerous institutions like government, education, society, capitalism, etc the motive is autonomy and independence. This explains our frequent feeling, as a whole, of discontent and speaks specifically to my emotional imbalance and doubt with the idea that “something seems to be missing.” So, like the authors pose the question, why do we run from what makes us feel good? Why do we make rules for what is wrong or right to ‘feel’ or ‘strive’ for? I do not believe it is because we are actually innately born “bad, mad, and dangerous…that as a species… we are deeply and fundamentally antagonistic…that our motives are utterly self-seeking and that our sympathies are forms of self-protection” (4). But, in actuality, we cannot love our neighbors as ourselves because we have lost love for ourselves without truly knowing why and what to do about it. With this as a generalization, it is also a vague, but often true remark to notice our expectations of kindness as a parent. And with this relationship, we often see how kindness brings pure joy and unconditional love, as well as vulnerability. Many people are deeply moved when they have a child and some contain such total love for them, even when the child disappoints or angers them. There is a connection that remains eternal between a parent and child. It is of course children that are pure and innocent, not yet contaminated and trained on how to avert kindness and vulnerability. Just in watching a young child, one can see the obvious attraction they have to help and be connected with another being.
The question posed is, are we meant to be competitive or cooperative? Tom Shadyac, director of I Am seeks to answer these questions as well. One example he gives is, Darwin’s theory of natural selection, where one might assume that nature is simply about survival of the fittest, or rivalry, but in actuality his popularized theory was skewed by the biases of the people who marketed it. Darwin, in fact knew of love, especially in nature. One study looked at a herd of deer, where it was assumed that the alpha-male would decide when the herd would go the watering hole. Researchers were surprised when they realized that the group went only when 51 percent, or the majority were in consent with each other. Even animal, whom we refer to as separate then us, including our nearest relatives, the Great Apes, is built for cooperation, mutual belonging, and kindness. Shadyac further supports this notion by speaking to scholars of all different disciplines including religion, science, psychology, sociology, history, and neurosciences. Starting with the questions: What is wrong with this world, the underlying root causes of our problems, tragedies, and disaster? And what can we do about it? We all know about a disappointment, a misfortune, or a problem that needs fixing. At our community partner association we identify a specific need and address is through service, while simultaneously analyzing ourselves and those we work with. We question society and institutions and when we see the complexity of the root systems in causation of the problem, we slightly retreat at the idea that some things are too big for us to change. Yet, at the same time, we choose not turn completely because for some reason, we feel good about our service, even if nothing drastically or immediately changed in that hour, in that, day or even in that week. However, our kindness prevails eternally, flowing through our magnetic fields which alter our every surrounding, carrying through the ancient and indispensible Argon we breathe, and matching a parallel in another brain through mirror neurons. The simple fact is that in every moment we are altering the world as we know it. Our kind words, brilliant ideas, nurturing hugs, fathomless silence can and will reach someone at some point. We are changing our world.
The movie most positively ends with the inspiration of connection in all of us, whether it is firing mirror neurons, shared emotions, or quantum physics. With answers came more questions, but one specific thing was certain by the end. What is right with the world? Guess what the answer is?
I Am.
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