This (pictured at right) popped up on my facebook page the other day and I’ve been meaning to write about it but got bogged down in politics. So, I’m writing about it now. Not enough people read Buckminster Fuller any more.
More than 50 years ago, he explained to mankind how we could turn this planet into a utopian paradise, ending hunger and homelessness and all other aspects of poverty. He was ahead of his time then and he is still ahead of our time now but I’m convinced he was absolutely right.
A couple of years ago I decided to reread one of his books (I Seem To Be a Verb, I believe it was) and realized one sad fact. Despite being a brilliant engineer, scientist and visionary, he really wasn’t a great writer. Too many big words and perhaps a bit more concerned with proving what a genius he was than actually communicating his point clearly. Whatever. It’s the ideas that count, and his ideas were brilliant.
Allow me to attempt to explain. For thousands and thousands of years, people slaved away, working long hours just to survive and dying young of a variety of diseases and that was understandable. That was life. You only got enough to eat if you were skillful enough to obtain it, and some people weren’t.
Then along came these things called science and technology and medicine and eventually the industrial revolution and tools and machines were invented that made human life easier, and one machine could do the work of 10 men, and then 100 men.
So, logically, the non-stop work week should be down to about a 10 hour work week by now, and everybody should have enough to eat. Obviously, it’s not working out like that, but it should be.
Fuller wasn’t talking about communism vs. capitalism, he was talking about making the world a better place, a nice place to live for everybody, because it really could be. I can understand that we all have different ideas about how to reach that utopian goal and to some extent we even have different versions of what an Edenic world would consist of.
The problem is, and this becomes clearer and clearer to me the older I get, is that there are a whole lot of people out there who do not share that goal. It is not enough for them to succeed, they want to make sure other people do not. I don’t know why they think like that but it’s clear that they do.
Because there is absolutely no reason why everybody on earth shouldn’t have a home, enough to eat, access to good health care and a good education, clean air and clean water. We have the technology.
www.gurukalehuru.com 
I worked my way through college in the 50’s, it was possible then. It took 7 years but I also was an adult in the workplace during that time and learned many skills. Employment opportunities at age 25 left me feeling ready to jump off a cliff and I made the choice to be an artist and support myself though sales of my work.
I was 40 before making more than $5,000 in a year. Many people were very supportive along the way. In the next 10 years I became successful and it was worth all the hard word.
I’m in my 70’s now and still as active as I was in my 20’s and 30’s, perhaps now even more focused. I’m healthy, at peace with myslef and productive, what more can there be?
There’s nothing better than being an artist. You get to do what you love, you never need to retire and you have the satisfaction of knowing that you have made a net contribution to human civilization.