R.Buckminster Fuller

Ever Increasingly More Relevant Today

I consider myself blessed to have been introduced to the work of Buckminster Fuller in my mid twenties. For the 25 plus years since, Bucky has become my daily teacher. I use his models every day. He inspires me, and when I am filled with doubt, his life example reassures me. Lately I have been finding myself talking with him, as one would talk to a wise and trusted advisor.

Why?

In our post modern world, as Positive Deviants exploring the world of integral second tier, there are few examples of people who live an integral life in a non integral world. Buckminster Fuller is the best example of this I have found. He chose at age 32, to commit 'ego' suicide, and to craft for himself a set of self disciplines that set the course for the rest of his life. He wanted to demonstrate that it was not only possible, but part of our natural design, to do work that was of our highest integrous expression. There was no need to earn a living doing work that wasn't spontaneously arousable from within us for the highest good for all. He was constantly inspired to explore everything from the lens of 'what is integrity". His path stayed true and clear for his entire life, and he died leaving the greatest legacy of our time.

Buckminster Fuller defied categorization. He was an inventor, historian, scholar, teacher, design scientist,game changer, father, husband, comprehensivist, and wordsmith. He spoke and wrote in sentences that could be several paragraphs long, using words that boggled brains. He said he would rather be not understood, than misunderstood

I really jumped into his world headlong, when in 1993, I and about 100 other people gathered on the Big Island of Hawaii to spend a week studying his last 21 hours of teaching, which had been recorded on video. We were joined by people who knew him, and worked with him. Amy Edmondson, Randolph Craft, DC Cordova and Robert Kiyosaki.

For the first two days, everyone in the room struggled to stay conscious during the times we listened to Bucky speak. His language and work required such a giant leap of cognition that our brains simply couldn't cope. I have rarely experienced this kind of massive mental shift, comparable to the shift from dark age thinking to the enlightenment.

Bucky left us many gifts, not least the example he set by the way he lived his life. His encapsulation of the generalized principles have profoundly affected my life. His consciousness around his every action, and his purposefulness and sheer joy for discovery of the simplest of things, daily inspires me.

His book, Critical Path written before he died, is a thorough encapsulation of his thinking and work and is a must read for anyone concerned with what we face today and tomorrow. I also have a very well read and referenced copy of Amy Edmondson's book, "A Fuller Explanation."

He invented artifacts that we use every day, and more that we have yet to employ. He was working on peak oil and the need to shift from fossil fuels back in the 1930's. He was very committed to cradle to cradle principles all of his life. He was a student of cosmic accounting and the need for a new economics. He was about a massive global game change.

Bucky Fuller was without doubt, a Positive Deviant.

We will explore Buckminster Fuller's principles, self disciplines and designs in the following pages. I hope you grow to love Bucky as I do, and to be inspired by his overwhelming commitment to the success of all of humanity and the eternally regenerative Universe.

If you have stories and experiences of Bucky's work, we would love to hear from you.

Spaceship Earth and the age of integrity

For an article on love, power and tensegrity

Emerge Through Emergency

Creative Integrity, a new way for a new world

To Read about the Principle of Synergy

For an article on Cosmic Accounting

To read an article on the principle of Precession, click here.

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