Empathy

This is a smallish drawing I did yesterday...I've treated this subject before & this instance was probably induced by seeing the movie "I AM" by Tom Shadyac, a director of Hollywood blockbuster comedies (Ace Ventura, Bruce Almighty, etc.) who, after a life-changing bicycle accident, started to question the nature of materialistic society & try to figure out what was wrong with the world, & how it could be fixed...

While not a masterpiece of cohesive artistic vision, I think, the film does raise some very interesting questions, issues & responses. Shadyac compares society's obsession with vast wealth to cancerous growth, which I tend to agree with, as the human race seems to be programmed for its own extinction as one of its possible outcomes.

Empathy seems to be a uniting human characteristic, despite the apparent domination of the "alpha male" and various other conceits that would have us at each other's throats the whole time. I came away from the film with the sensation that we are, in addition to being individual organisms concerned with our own advancement, also part of something much larger, like a wave or field. The movie documents ways in which scientists have been able to measure human emotional energy fields, as well as more philosophical ideas from some of the world's great thinkers alive & dead.

Definitely worth a viewing. Note: there is one disturbing moment in the movie, which might make it unsuitable for children...ironically it comes from "Un Chien Andalou", Dali & Bunuel's surrealist film from 1929, which retains its ability to shock, it seems.

Empathy, 2011, brush & ink on paper, 11" x 8.5".