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Resolutions from the planet’s friendly genius…
Have a Bucky New Year!

Buckminster Fuller, one of the most enlightened mystics of our time, was in his early eighties when I stalked him down in Chicago in 1982.  Known then as “the planet’s friendly genius” he was in town for a science exhibition at Navy Pier.  Being an aggressive young reporter, I had secured an interview with him through his secretary and we met at the top of the John Hancock Building on Michigan Avenue.

He spent several hours telling me about his life and lecturing me on the future of planet earth.  I took copious notes, which pleased him greatly, and kept him talking.  I felt unworthy of so much of his time, but he said I was an “empty vessel” and that his thoughts would therefore stick in me, which would enable me to spread his ideas throughout the world.

He saw me again the next day for a couple more hours and in this 48 hour period, Bucky Fuller hijacked my mind and scared the living daylights out of me about our planet’s future.  The responsibility overwhelmed me.  I became depressed, and despite repeated attempts, was never up to task of writing about him or his ideas.

Nearly twenty years later, on the morning of September 11, 2001, I tore through the attic looking for my notes, because he had predicted such a cataclysmic event, and said it could lead to the downfall of the United States.  But neither my notes nor the audio recording I made of him were ever to be found.

To this day I remain wracked with guilt that I never shared his urgent messages.  But suddenly this morning there was a new little voice (his?) that says it is not too late.  So in the spirit of New Year, here, at long last, is a list of resolutions Buckminster Fuller told me that he would like all of us to make as a “united space planet people”:

Choose “livingly” over weaponry.  We have the capability to conquer all of the world’s hunger and most of its human suffering in a very short time.  In 1959, Bucky predicted we would accomplish this by 2000.  In 1983 he was much less optimistic, and even frantic that we would miss the opportunity.  All that is required, he said, is that we make the conscious choice to do it.  The resources exist ten-fold and by simply choosing this objective as our primary one, there will be nothing big enough to get in the way of it happening.

Do more with less.  Many of Becky’s inventions were about getting maximum use out of minimum materials and resources.  This he applied to his famous car, his “living systems” and of course to his triumphant geodesic dome.  He believed our country was headed for trouble because of our greedy over-use and abuse of the world’s limited natural resources. Doing more with less is therefore a resolution for both the individual and for humanity in general.

Understand the power of individual thought and action.  “The future of our planet will be determined by individual choice,” Bucky said.  Only the collective will of individuals, and nothing more, will determine the direction of “spaceship earth”. There will come a time when we will all “vote” just by thinking about what the direction should be.  So we should start voting with our thoughts now.

(It was many years later that the science of Noetics was officially established right here in Marin County.  Noetics is based upon the principle that the human soul is a semi-permeable membrane, and that it can be penetrated by other human souls.)

See America from a global perspective.  Bucky worried that the U.S. would fall.  He compared us to Rome.  America will not be able to integrate with the rest of the world, he said, and will disintegrate into small nation states.  This will happen if our fierce national pride and sense of independence interferes with our essential acceptance that we are one “united space planet people”.  He predicted that rogue militants from angry oppressed nations would attack us because we would not to live up to our job as the leader of the world, a position that would be unofficially conferred upon us when communism fell.  He restated this point a dozen times in a dozen different ways, apparently trying to explode his 25-year old “empty vessel”.   I got serious headaches and wondered if he was senile. I was a happy go lucky yuppie dancing in bars at night. These things were not possible. The fall of communism?  America under attack?  The disintegration of America?  The very destruction of humanity due to its own squandering? 

We finished our interview for the day, and rode the ninety eight floors down to Michigan Avenue. It was raining and the sun was shining at the same time, which Bucky said was his favorite kind of weather.  When we passed a tattered homeless man holding a sign that read “the world is ending”, Bucky called him “a man ahead of his time”. 
Yet Buckminster Fuller said he would never lose faith in a bright future for humanity….

Live a life of “conscious evolution”.  Have faith, always, Bucky said, that you are part of an upwardly evolving species, and that your choices can have a positive impact on the evolution of humankind.

And finally, this resolution isn’t his statement, but mine, upon reflection of how Buckminster Fuller live his life:

Love with all your might.  As his beloved wife lay dying in a coma in July, 1983, Bucky sat at her bedside, holding her hand, awaiting the inevitable end.  His daughter Allegra wrote how a despondent Bucky suddenly exclaimed, “She’s squeezing my hand!,” and upon speaking those words, had a massive heart attack and passed away soon after, preceding his wife by only hours.

And there was just one more little tip he gave when I asked how he kept up such an amazingly intense schedule at the age of 80 something.  “I can sleep anywhere,” he said.  “A fifteen minute nap is a complete restorative once you learn how to do it right.”

So here’s wishing you some good short naps, a New Year filled with Bucky’s power of enlightenment, and a hope that at least some of his dreams will be realized soon.

Your fellow united space planet citizen,
Pat Ravasio
Corte Madera, California

pravasio@fhallen.com

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