“I live on Earth at present,
and I don’t know what I am.
I know that I am not a category.
I am not a thing—a noun.
I seem to be a verb,
an evolutionary process—
an integral function of the universe.”
~ R. Buckminster Fuller
( I Seem To Be a Verb 1970 )
As previously mentioned, no post on Buckminster Fuller ever goes unappreciated by me.
Perhaps reading his book I Seem to Be a Verb at that particularly impressionable time in my young adult life when I was searching for something to believe in—something meaningful to guide me—something to inspire me to look beyond the end of my nose and to see the world that we ALL share in a different, more expansive manner; perhaps that simple literary catalyst was a defining moment of TRUTH to settle the inner restlessness that I had felt for so long.
I mean seriously THINK about what he is saying here: “I live on Earth at present, and I don’t know what I am. I know that I am not a category. I am NOT a thing—a noun. I seem to be a VERB, an evolutionary process—an integral function of the universe.”
Distilled version: “I don’t know what I am…I am NOT a thing…I seem to be…an evolutionary process…an integral FUNCTION of the Universe.”
The NOUN of ‘ME’ represents the ego; while the VERB of ‘ME’ is the ‘action taken’ through my BEING—it’s the Universe witnessing aspects of itself through this particular lens (aperture) of perception during this time period.
The VERB known as “Buckminster Fuller” keeps affecting others long after his death; inspiring them through his engineering genius, his humanist philosophy on our ecological-interconnectedness, set against his stark humbleness pertaining to his actual earth presence here.
If you study his life’s work at all, you will quickly see that Buckminster Fuller made things happen in a very BIG way. You can trace his life’s effect though our species subsequent social and cultural planetary evolution that aligned most closely to his words and deeds.
The real importance of Fuller’s existence was NOT in his fame or his personhood per se, but in his evolutional legacy for humanity.
And when it comes down to it, at the end of our time here on Earth, we should ALL strive to be so impactful.
