(no subject)

[kradeelav]

filing under things that don't quite fit the Muse zine, but was close enough to post here:

3: In 1927, young Buckminster Fuller’s housing business failed, and he decided to commit suicide. Then (h/t @amplituhedron):

Fuller said that he had experienced a profound incident which would provide direction and purpose for his life. He felt as though he was suspended several feet above the ground enclosed in a white sphere of light. A voice spoke directly to Fuller, and declared: “From now on you need never await temporal attestation to your thought. You think the the truth. You do not have the right to eliminate yourself. You belong to the Universe. Your significance may remain forever obscure to you, but you may assume that you are fulfilling your role if you apply yourself to converting your experiences to the highest advantage of others.

Sixty years later, he would describe himself as “Guinea Pig B”, and write:

I am now close to 88 and I am . . . a living case history of a thoroughly documented, half-century, search-and-research project designed to discover what, if anything, an unknown, moneyless individual, with a dependent wife and newborn child, might be able to do effectively on behalf of all humanity that could not be accomplished by great nations, great religions or private enterprise, no matter how rich or powerfully armed.

More on Fuller’s Wikipedia page. (whole thing nabbed here.)