Simon Mitchell - Eat Good Food and Play

Rather flippantly I asked my 13 year old son ‘What is the purpose of your existence?’ In a trice he replied ‘To eat good food and play!”. Grabbing the last of his organic apple slices he dashed out of the door to do just that. But it got me thinking as I washed up - what if he’s right! How could one manage this as an adult ?

Geodesic dome Another expert at playing, following his own intuition to make ‘artfacts’ was Buckminster Fuller - a radical designer dedicated to human evolution. He is best known as the premier designer of Geodesics. He found a way to do just what he wanted and called it ‘The Precession Theory’.

In short he reckoned that if you dedicated yourself to the primary ‘paths’ of evolution you would get a kickback, always just in the nick of time and from an unexpected source. Worth looking into.

Buckminster Fuller's Precession Theory is described in 'Critical Path'. He:

“assumed that humanity was designed to perform an important function in the Universe, a function it would discover only after an initially innocent by-trial-and-error-discovered phase of capability development.

During the initial phase humans, always born naked, helpless and ignorant but with hunger, thirst and curiosity to drive them, have been chromosomically programmed to operate succesfully only by means of the general biological inadvertencies of bumbling ‘honey seeking’ [eg money making].

Therefore what humans called the side effects of their conscious drives in fact produced the main ecological effects of generalized technological regeneration. I therefore assumed that what humanity rated as 'side effects' are nature's main effects. I adopted the precessional 'side effects' as my prime objective”.

Did you enjoy this article?

THEN, GO GET NETTLE SOUP!
The Free, quarterly ezine for Green People,
made with love, from simonthescribe

To explain this, If we think about pollination, bee's actually don't intend to pollinate, yet they do so and benefit both systems - the Bee AND the Flower. The bee's presence on a flower with the appropriate structure transfers pollen to the bee. The Bee is seeking energy (nectar) and finds it in a flower. The energy required for the pollen contact is not part of the intentional action and reaction, which is the bee gathering nectar. Buckminster Fuller theorised that the bee is getting a reward from nature because it is helping nature to reproduce plant life!

So Buckminster Fuller came up with the theory that if he dedicated himself to do something to benefit the world, then he would never need to worry about money again as he would always be looked after and rewarded by the Universe and that the Universe would provide for him and his family. All he needed to do was to get passionate and 'go do it' (and 'enough money' would be the 90 degree side effect!). In brief Fuller committed himself ( and a large family) to his making artifacts that he felt were part of the ‘path of human evolution’, regardless of considerations of income. He found that somehow, always at the last minute, he was able to survive.

As someone who dislikes many of the aspects of capitalism, the sheer faith this guy had was quite stunning. I have always tried to follow this ideal and when I find myself broke, I console and motivate myself by realising that I may not be serving the process of evolution quite as well as I could be.