Buckminster Fuller & Sustainability
I hadn’t really thought very much about Buckminster Fuller in a few years. I was busy with my ordinary life, worrying about election rhetoric, bills, my current clients, and other assorted things. But there he was, just behind my right shoulder, whispering to me like an old friend.
“Uh-huh.” he said. “Systems thinking again. Now isn’t that just what I was talking about?! And here they are, all talking about ‘Sustainability’ like it was a new concept!” he said derisively.
Startled, I turned to see who was talking and then realized it was just the ghost of Bucky Fuller reminding me that there is nothing new under the sun, just a recycled idea or two.
I laughed at the reminder. I needed that!
Bucky played a pivotal role in my development as a thinker. It felt strangely familiar when I found myself saying to someone lately, “Just picture the thing or event completely finished and work backward – break down the parts backwards and it builds itself forward to the completed picture. It makes it easy to do anything that way.” I wasn’t sure where I got that, but then I discovered again that Bucky called himself a “comprehensive anticipatory design scientist” because he used the backwards process I had just described. To him, and then to me, looking at the big picture first isn’t backwards. It’s the only way to go forward!
So I would encourage you to become familiar with one of the original backward-forward thinkers and see if his way of looking at Earth and Sustainability don’t make sense in your life. After all, what’s at stake is your future… and your kid’s future.
Read about Bucky at
http://bfi.org/
If you live in Portland, Oregon, go “meet” Bucky now thru Dec 7 at the Armory.
It may change your life forever, especially if you go to the other public events listed.
http://www.pcs.org/bucky/