Life Transformation: A Personal Journey of Tom Shadyac

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“Humanity is going to require a substantially new way of thinking if it is to survive.” -Albert Einstein. This quote, along with the documentary, is so eye opening to how our society functions and what it’s based on. In I Am, Tom Shadyac had the same dream and goals of many others in the USA: to stand out, be different, and be better than others. Well, until he got in a terrible bike crash where he broke a hand and got a serious concussion. It doesn’t seem like anything life changing, but the catch is that he was told that he had also had gotten post-concussion syndrome. PC syndrome is where you have all the symptoms of a concussion but for an extended amount of time; it can last for weeks, months, or even as long as you live. For several months after the crash Shadyac had very strong symptoms and ended up isolating himself because he was always in pain. He …show more content…

stagnation from Erikson’s theory of development. People face this stage when they are around the ages of 35-55 years old. Generativity is all about teaching and guiding the next generation as well as being concerned for them. Stagnation is basically the opposite of that, it is being inactive with younger people and being more self-involved. In I Am, Shadyac really tries to communicate that we are one, we are not separated but connected to each other. He says sympathy is the strongest trait and that we were born to be a community, a democracy, and to help one another. That is exactly how it should be and what generativity is about. One important thing Shadyac said really related to the idea of stagnation; when he said that if we keep seeing our enemies as separate from us, then we’ll continue living the same way we do now, instead of making a change. With stagnation, people don’t care about the next generation, some even despise them because of the way they live, but like Shadyac said if we continue this separation we will never see the change we

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