A (tiny) HOUSE FOR TOM SHADYAK

 

 

Jean Paul Sartre said that there are three essential verbs: to be, to do and to have.

 

One cannot be without the others.

 

You cannot be without having and doing.

 

You cannot have without being and doing.

 

You cannot do without being and having.

 

To a large extent it is true. Especially from a “Western” position.

 

But what can one do when one or two of the above verbs overwhelm the third one…?

 

Indeed, isn’t today, generally speaking, the great time of having and doing, but much less of being…??????????????

 

Many definitions have been proposed for TO BE.

 

I am what I think.

 

I am what I read.

 

I am what I eat.

 

Etc, etc, etc.

 

They are all true and none.

 

But to question what one is, IS a good way of “earning one’s life.”

 

This is exactly what the previously highly “successful” director of very “successful” Hollywood comedies Tom Shadyak is set to do, in a documentary that he plans to film with the simple title “I Am.”

 

It is moving to see a previously very “successful” Hollywood film director claim that life begins when one gives away the Hollywood toys.

 

Of course, there are still the many skeptics, who try to explain Shadyak’s change of mind through the effects of a concussion. They simply cannot understand how a change in consciousness can occur, unless they invoke a falling from the bike (as apparently Tom Shadyak suffered.)

 

We like to think that the falling from the bike was providential.

 

We ask you to design a tiny house for a man who earned millions but who understood that the competitive system that brought him this money is intrinsically part and cause of today’s problems.

 

We think it takes courage to adopt such a position, with or without the help of a bicycle.

 

We need, we think, to look critically at the false gods the media is alerting us to. If there are “stars” in this world, they are not those that Capitalism is imposing on us, every second, every minute, every hour. There is a chance that, by reflecting on Tom Shadyak, we can reflect on ourselves.

 

What is the right balance between to be, to do and to have…?????

 

Please send us ANY work, ANY size and ANY format to works@icarch.us. That is “us” (we, together), not “US” (The United States). We will publish all the works we received on our website, www.icarch.us. The deadline is January 15th, 2011. If you have any questions please contact us.

 

Thank you,

 

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