The 22 Self Disciplines of Buckminster Fuller - Larry G. Maguire

The 22 Self Disciplines of Buckminster Fuller - Larry G. Maguire https://larrygmaguire.
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The 22 Self Disciplines of Buckminster

Fuller
6TH MAY 2019 by LARRY G. MAGUIRE — 12 COMMENTS
Self Disciplines of
Buckminster Fuller
In 1927, Buckminster Fuller found himself in financial
ruin and personal turmoil. Five years earlier, his first
child, Alexandra, has passed away aged four from
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The 22 Self Disciplines of Buckminster Fuller - Larry G. Maguire https://larrygmaguire.com/self-disciplines-buckminster-fuller/
spinal meningitis. Now his business had failed, leaving

him broke with investors, his family and friends who
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invested in him, at a loss. He drank heavily, was
depressed and contemplated suicide, then something
changed. As he considered drowning himself in Lake
Michigan, he had an epiphany and began to redesign
his life. The 22 self disciplines he subsequently
established were to become the foundation of a
successful career as an inventor, design architect and
philosopher. Despite the absence of any third level
degree, he lectured at universities and became a
significant influence on the formation of ideas and
work of subsequent generations.
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· · ·
I am not precisely sure how I came first to read the

work of R. Buckminster Fuller. I suspect it was
through an advocate of his, philosopher and author
Alan Watts, in one or more of the many Watts
lectures I've gathered over the years. Regardless,
certain people come our way who make an indelible
impact on our thinking and Buckminster Fuller, for
me, has been one of those people.
Fuller believed in a Universe that was generative

and self-supporting, self-sustaining and built with
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the inherent ability to provide substantially for all

life forms it contained. Within the fabric and
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structure of this self-supporting universe, he
postulated a self-managing universal accounting
system that ensured success and abundance for all
life on earth and beyond. However, opposingly he
highlighted the folly of what he called the selfish
and fearfully contrived “wealth games” that
humanity plays under a misinformed survival-of-
the-fittest ideology. In the playing of these wealth
games, he highlighted, humanity would ultimately
destroy itself. However, in that, he offered a
solution.
If an individual free from the constraints of dogma

and group ideology was to attempt via all resources
available to him/her, through non-self-centred
motivation, to create real solutions to humanity's
problems, then in our inevitable evolution towards
better we would adopt these solutions. In today's
Sunday Letters article I take a look at a tiny but
essential aspect of Fuller's work – self-made
commitments that reflected his core values and
directed his life's work towards solutions to global
problems and the advancement of all life on the
planet. Something to which he suggests that no
nation, private enterprise, religion, or other multi-
peopled, bias fostering combination of individuals
has ever managed to accomplish.
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My personal assertion is that given the current

momentum and direction of human development
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we will eventually destroy ourselves, despite the
honourable efforts of people like Buckminster
Fuller. In our self-destruction, we will exercise the
very self-sustaining forces of the Universe
highlighted by Fuller. Because the survival of the
gestalt entity will always supersede the survival of
any individual species. It can never be any other
way. The whole will always seek out homeostasis –
equilibrium at the expense of any individual entity
or species.
I want to be wrong but given our current stage of

evolution and our openness to propaganda and
mongering of fear, I can't but expect our soon to be
expiration. The vast majority of people only know
self through associations with the larger group –
the collective self. And it is through this group
identity that our thoughts and beliefs are sculpted.
Our thoughts are automatic and predictable. We
crave more things, higher social status and
acceptance even down to our micro-social
interactions. Paradoxically, it is in this attempt to
find validation of self through the relationship with
others and broader society that we become
incapable of seeing our true selves and therefore
the impact of our actions on our collective
existence.
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Who Was Buckminster

Fuller?
Richard Buckminster Fuller was a highly regarded
and respected 20th-century inventor and
visionary, but it didn't start out that way. He was
born in Milton, Massachusetts on July 12, 1895, to
Richard Buckminster Fuller Snr. and Caroline
Wolcott Andrews. In 1913 Fuller entered Harvard
University but shortly afterwards was dismissed
from for excessive socialising and missing exams.
Afterwards, he spent time working in a sawmill and
after unsuccessfully attempting to renew his
Harvard education, he later joined the US Navy
where he became an officer.
After leaving the Navy after WW1, Fuller entered

the business world. He joined his father-in-law in
the construction industry opening four factories
creating building components. But the business
ultimately failed, leaving Fuller penniless and
disgraced, losing investments made by family and
friends in the process. Such was the financial loss
and the loss to his sense of self; it is said that he
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became profoundly depressed and contemplated

suicide. Spending nearly two years as a recluse, in
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deep contemplation about the nature of his
relationship to the world and the broader universe,
he realised that he had no right to end his own life.
Instead, he decided to discover how he could make
the most valuable contribution to the whole of
humanity through the systematic design and
application of technology.
“ 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
Buckminster Fuller
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Buckminster Fuller realised that society was

preoccupied with individual, local and national
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focused issues. In the pursuit of self-serving
interests, it was impossible for politicians, business
leaders and those of influence to give credence to
global problems with any true conviction. The
political vision was too narrow, collective thinking
was too short term. When we see our lives as finite
as opposed to ever-lasting through subsequent
generations of human beings, when we cannot see
beyond the scope of our own self-interest, when
we fear loss, it becomes impossible to serve
humanity as a whole. Resources seem finite in this
finite state of mind and therefore we justify all
kinds of abhorrent acts in pursuit of growth and
survival. To Fuller, it seemed clear that only an
individual operating on their own economic and
philosophical initiative could reveal the solutions
required to humanity's global problems.
Fuller subsequently decided to dedicate his life to

creating a world that works for all human beings
equally rather than the gilded 1%. He became a
practical philosopher demonstrating his universal
concepts through inventions which he termed
“artifacts.” Fuller did not limit himself to one field
but worked as a “comprehensive anticipatory
design scientist” to solve global problems
associated with education, energy, environmental
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destruction, and poverty. Throughout his life, Fuller

held 28 patents, wrote 28 books and was in receipt
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of 47 honorary degrees. Produced over 300,000
times worldwide, Fuller's most well-known artifact
and greatest monetary claim to fame is the
geodesic dome – the hemispherical structure
(lattice-shell) based on a geodesic polyhedron.
Buckminster Fuller's Geodesic Dome Patent 1965
Self Disciplines of
Buckminster Fuller
Upon reading Buckminster Fuller's business
failure, his story appeared to have a greater weight
and significance for me. I could relate. With his time
spent in solitude, I could relate. I felt further
vindicated and redeemed for the experience of my
own failures. It's a strange feeling when we find
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others out there on the ragged rim of life who have

gone through things we have. There is a
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camaraderie, a kinship and an understanding – we
seem to be cut from the same cloth.
We have to be careful, however, not to

congratulate each other too much, or indeed
wallow in our defeat. Reading Critical Path 1,
Fuller's final published book, there is certainly not
the sense of his wallowing in that first defeat. On
the contrary, after his emergence from the cocoon
of his 2-year self-imposed solitude, it seems he had
the seed of something diametrically opposed to
that first failure, something that would
subsequently grow exponentially bigger as he
predicted.
Other things Fuller wrote about such as

‘spontaneously engendered support' resonated
with me also. We'll discuss this principle later in
more detail but for now, it's sufficient to note that
Fuller believed if he were working for the benefit of
all humanity then the necessary support required
would appear when needed. It served to re-enforce
for me, the ideas that were coming together in The
Artist's Manifesto.
At the point in 1927 where Fuller found himself at

his absolute low and contemplating suicide, with a
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young family, penniless, and as he put it; “a

throwaway in the business world”, he made a series
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of resolutions. These self-disciplines, coupled with
those formed in his earlier life, would prove to be
the solid ground upon which he was to build his life
and work success.
In Chapter 4 of Critical Path, Fuller outlines 22

self-disciplines although the first six or so don't
seem like self-disciplines to me. Instead, they seem
like ideas planted in his young head by others
around him or significant instances in his early life
that subsequently led to the self-disciplines that
would guide his career. Regardless, he had a unique
style of writing so I will be faithful as possible to the
book and include them as he has done.
· · ·
Self Discipline #1: Never

mind what you think – listen.
Fuller's mother said it, his teachers said it, every
grownup authority he knew said it. Thinking wasn't
something one could engage in without the
supervision of those who knew better and children
certainly were not to be trusted to think for
themselves. As he put it; thinking was considered
to be an utterly unreliable process when
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spontaneously attempted by youth.

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So he did what he was told, for a while.
Self Discipline #2: Love thy

neighbour
Fuller was raised in the Unitarian church where his
grandfather was a preacher. His grandmother
taught him to love thy neighbour as thyself, do unto
others as you would they do unto you. Although it
seems he left aside the dogmatic ideology of his
religion in favour of experience based scientific
facts, a concept of God seemed to stay with Fuller,
albeit somewhat different to traditional religionist
thinking.
Self Discipline #3: Life is hard

As he grew older, his uncles and other males of
influence in his family began to preach opposite of
his grandmother's christian principle. They
reinforced the idea that life was hard and that
although grandmother's golden rule was nice, it
wasn't practical. His uncles' life is hard principle
encouraged young Richard to accept that if he
were to provide for himself and a family then he
would have to deprive other people of a
comfortable life. Survival of the fittest took over.
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Self Discipline #4: Follow the

rules
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The rules seemed to be written by others and

Fuller began to accept that he needed to follow
them. He ignored his own thinking and trained
himself as you would train to play football, to follow
the rules of the game of life.
Self Discipline #5: Learn to

cope
With this ideology taking firm hold, it seemed that
he couldn't bring himself to win over and sacrifice
others to his own ends. After leaving the Navy and
finding himself in the competition based business
world, he turned out, as he called it, “a spontaneous
failure”. He says; “I was sure I could cope with
hardship better than the other guy, so I would
yield”. It seems he struggled to operate in this dog
eat dog world of business.
Self Discipline #6: Form an

integrated self
In 1907 it was poet Robert Burns who inspired
Fuller with his 1786 poem, To A Louse, and the line;
“O wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!” 2 Fuller opted to
integrate the self he saw as him, with the self
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others saw and to deal as objectively as possible,

the world around him. With this conviction, he
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began recording his life in what he called “The
Chronofile”, which consists of every written record
of his engagements both good and bad, with the
world and others in it.
Today, Fuller's Chronofile is housed at Stanford

University 3 and contains an entire account of his
life and work from that fateful day in 1907.
Self Discipline #7: See oneself

as an experiment
After his return from the edge of dispair, Fuller
sought to set himself as the subject in a life long
experiment with himself as the guinea pig. The
experiment was designed to uncover what, if
anything, a healthy young male of average size,
experience and capability, with dependants, no
capital or access to credit, could do to effectively
alter the fortunes of humanity.
A brave move, something that goes against popular

convention and advice one would be expected to
receive given Fuller's financial condition at this
time. Later in the book he admits that things not
always went to plan. Sometimes he had to take jobs
to pay the bills, but eventually he would return to
his base commitment and continue his experiment.
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Self Discipline #8: Serve all

humanity
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Perhaps an idealistic and naive position to take,

Fuller dedicated himself to provide solutions to all
humanity's problems and to serve the interests
through his work, of all human beings as opposed
to traditional personal and business motivations
which aim to self serve first and foremost.
He insists that the decision was not taken

recklessly or on an naively altruistic basis, but
rather on the basis of evidence contained in his
Chronofile, which demonstrated that when he was
motivated to serve others first, then he would be
adequately compensated.
Self Discipline #9: Do your

own thinking
He sought to do all his own thinking, confining it to
information gained directly from his personal
experience. He sought to move from a centred
place of innate motivational integrity rather than
trying to accommodate the opinions, values and
theories of other people.
Self Discipline #10: Never at

the cost of others
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He sought to pursue and develop his ideas for the

benefit of everybody and at the expense or cost to
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nobody else.
“ Every atom and electron

is an essential part of the
eternally regenerative –
ergo, totally inexhaustible,
but always ebbing and
flowing – pulsative
Universe.
R. Buckminster Fuller
Self Discipline #11:

Emancipate humanity from
unfavourable conditions
Buckminster Fuller sought to reduce his
technological ideas to physically working models,
designed to counter existing unfavourable
conditions, predominant customs and societal
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afflictions so much so that he could emancipate

human beings from their unfavourable conditions.
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These new inventions would provide society with

technological advances and reforms that
previously proved impossible by social reform. He
sought to reform the environment through
technology, not human beings.
Self Discipline #12: Never

promote oneself
Fuller sought never to promote or sell himself or
pay anyone else to do so. A remarkable position to
take, the extent of the detail of which I am not fully
aware. However, this self-discipline is very
interesting to me, for how does someone spread
the word about their product or service if we were
not to promote it? This question needs further
investigation on my part.
He went on to say that he would never hire agents

or personnel who would solicit the support of any
kind for his work. He held that humanity would
adopt his new systems and inventions when there
became a survival need which would come about
by evolutionary means.
Self Discipline #13: Develop

patience
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Fuller assumed that nature and the universe as a

whole, had its own unique gestation period, not
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only for biological elements but for technological
inventions also.
Self Discipline #14: Accept the

spontaneity of acceptance
Fuller believed that humanity would inevitably
adopt the devices and systems he created and so
he sought to develop his artifacts with the
necessary time margin anticipated. In other words,
he believed that there was no need to rush his
work or push or pressure for his ideas to be
adopted. He assumed that nature would evaluate
his work as he progressed providing he worked
with nature's fundamental principles.
Self Discipline #15: Learn

most from mistakes
He sought to learn the most from his mistakes but
never to ponder in worry or procrastination. When
he did so he felt sad, but when he always sought to
learn and progress, he felt happy. Therefore the
way forward was practical.
Self Discipline #16: Waste no

time in worry
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As mentioned above, Fuller sought not to ponder

failure and instead, as he put it; I sought to…
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increase time invested in discovery of technological
effectiveness.
Self Discipline #17: Document

progress in the official records
Fuller had no university degree, so in order to
document his progress in the public records, he
sought patents for all his inventions. Some of these
expired worthless, some provided an income but as
he stresses in Critical Path, his motive was not to
make money from the patents.
Self Discipline #18:

Comprehend the principles
of regenerative Universe
Above all, Fuller sought to understand and work
with, the fundamental principles of what he
termed; “eternally regenerative Universe” and
subsequently implement these principles in the
design and manufacture of his artifacts.
Self Discipline #19: Educate

oneself comprehensively
The breath and depth of scientific knowledge is
vast, but that didn't stop Fuller from undertaking
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the comprehensive education of himself. He sought

to digest comprehensively the inventory of human
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understanding of all chemical compounds, weights,
performance characteristics, effect of the
interalloyability and so on.
It didn't stop there. Fuller undertook to consume all

the data he could related to economics, global
demographics, energy production capabilities,
logistics and vital statistics yet amassed by human
beings.
A tall order.
Self Discipline #20: Operate

on a do-it-yourself basis
He sought only to operate as a business of one – a
remarkable undertaking I'm sure you'll agree. If he
couldn't do it by his own ingenuity then it wouldn't
be done.
Self Discipline #21: Provide

advantage to new life
Inspired by the healthy birth of his second child,
Allegra in 1927, Fuller says; I oriented what I called
my “comprehensive, anticipatory design science
strategies” to primarily advantage new life to born
within the environment-controlling devices I was
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designing and developing”.

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He realised the problems humanity encountered
would take fifty years to solve and organised
groups such as governments and corporations
were incapable of providing the solutions. For his
daughter and all new human life to live in a better
world, he would have to get his hands dirty.
Self Discipline #22: The role

of God
Given Fuller's religious upbringing, it seems from
reading his work that he needed to somehow
integrate the God of his religion into the set of
beliefs he built based on scientific knowledge and
personal experience. For many, God does not
belong in science. However, I believe that a God of
sorts, a universal animator, can be reconcilable with
all of this. Buckminster Fuller seemed to
understand the same.
In his final note on his self-disciplines, he refers to

this final one as perhaps containing the greatest
weight and influence. As such I think it best to offer
Fuller in his own words.
“ At the outset of my resolve not only to do my

own thinking but to keep that thinking
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concerned only with directly experienced

evidence, I resolved to abandon completely
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all that I ever had been taught to believe.
Experience had demonstrated to me that
most people had an authority-trusting sense
that persuaded them to believingly accept
the dogma and legends of one religious
group or another and to join that group's
formalised worship of God. I asked myself
whether I had any direct experiences in life
that made me have to assume a greater
intellect than that of humans to be operative
in Universe…I said to myself, I am
overwhelmed by the only experientially
discovered evidence of an a priori eternal,
omnicomprehensive, infinitely and
exquisitely concerned, intellectual integrity
that we may call God, though knowing that
in whatever way we humans refer to this
integrity, it will always be an inadequate
expression of its cosmic omniscience and
omnipotence.
Buckminster Fuller, Critical Path
A Final Word
It appears to me that for Buckminster Fuller, in the
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depth of his depression and upon the imminent

destruction of self, there appeared in his
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consciousness a greater meaning and purpose for
his survival than he understood himself to
represent. In this, he found a reason to live and play
the game at the highest level he could.
His achievements were remarkable and I have

significant admiration for him. But I don't see it
imperative for myself, or anyone else, to attempt to
emulate Buckminster Fuller's achievements. That is
not the purpose of this article. To attempt do so, in
my opinion, is naive and foolish because he was him
and I am me, you are you. We are meant to be who
we will be and although we can admire the
achievements of great people, we must accept that
they are as unique as we are.
Motivational speakers and writers, personal

development gurus and such like, are perhaps well-
meaning in their presentation of remarkable
people as the benchmark for human performance
and achievement. However, they are often
misguided in their intentions.
We each have a responsibility to only ourselves, to

be true to whatever it is that calls us. Buckminster
Fuller was the perfect example of this for me. Sure,
let's take inspiration from other people, but in
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honour of Buckminster Fuller's 9th Self-Discipline,

let's not allow other's experiences to dictate our
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direction.
To discover more about this remarkable human being,

visit The Buckminster Fuller Institute 4 who continue
to promote his work.
ARTICLE REFERENCES
1. “Self-Disciplines of Buckminster Fuller.”

Critical Path, by Richard Buckminster Fuller, St.
Martin's Press, 1981, pp. 123–160. "
2. Burns, R. (n.d.). To A Louse. Retrieved May 06,
2019, from http://www.robertburns.org
/works/97.shtml "
3. Fuller, R. B. (n.d.). R. Buckminster Fuller
Collection. Retrieved May 06, 2019, from
https://library.stanford.edu/collections/r-
buckminster-fuller-collection "
4. Bfi.org. (2019). The Buckminster Fuller Institute.
[online] Available at: https://www.bfi.org
[Accessed 6 May 2019] "
FILED UNDER: MOTIVATION

TAGGED WITH: BUCKMINSTER FULLER, FAILURE, SELF DISCIPLINE,
SUNDAY LETTERS
Author | Larry G. Maguire
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I'm Larry G. Maguire, writer and

work psychologist focusing on
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behaviour and performance in
the workplacee. I publish the
weekly Sunday Letters Journal and work with
clients helping them find clarity and direction in
work. > Get in touch with me here
Comments
GREG SHEPHARD says
28th August 2020 at 8:09 pm
I love this piece of writing ,thank you .

I met Fuller as a lecture in 1978 on Nantucket
Island.
When I asked him where to begin with his work ,he
directed me to TIMELOCK.
It was there I encountered his vision for a global
industry in 4D.
That has been the throughline of my work since a
series of epiphanies in the late 90’s.
I am guided by 2questions: “What would Fuller do
with the tools/language we have now? and 2: What
can a library be in the 21st century?
The second question arising from another field trip
on Nantucket that revealed a poster in the local
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high school that read : Libraries are the second line

of defence for democracy , reading is the first.
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From the critical path I concluded what needs to
happen now is to continue the timeline project he
started to the present day and beyond. In effect, a
never ending timeline of human progress, each
succeeding generation hands down to the next.AS
Fuller handed us the template, we are now able to
turn that into an ongoing celebration of human
advancement. Yes, I believe this is what he would
be up to were he here today. The critical path
timeline is the spine of this library of lost and found
knowledge we will be launching in the months to
come. Perhpas this is a good place to leave this
,again with my thanks for creating an important
context to build from given his work is more
relevant now than ever before.
Reply
larrym says
28th August 2020 at 8:26 pm
Hello Greg, thanks for visiting the article and

taking the time to comment. When I first
started reading Fuller I was excited that here
was someone talking about things that I
thought about, and more, long before I was
even here. I’m only reading him a couple of
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years on and off and I’m way off assimilating

his material just yet, but I get the impression
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that he knew the things he was bringing to the
fore would not be adopted by humanity
anytime soon. I still don’t think we’re ready. It’s
like we have to fail dramatically first. The
current means of operation, of living and
working, have to collapse before new means
are adopted. I think we are so close to
annihilation at this time… Stupid people. We’re
destroying everything. Maybe it’s an inevitable
part of our evolution.
Reply
Michael says
21st August 2019 at 9:27 pm
“We each have a responsibility to only ourselves, to

be true to whatever it is that calls us.” Thank you for
showing me that I need to pull my head out of my
backside and start seeing daylight again. Unlike
college, my failures were more informative and
literally less expensive! Sincerely, Mike
Reply
26 of 32 11/22/22, 12:03 PM
Steve Strauss says

! START HERE ! ARTICLES " PODCAST " SUBSCRIBE # ABOUT
9th May!2019
STORE
at 6:13 pm
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Synthesizing Bucky, and especially his writings, is

no easy task. His life and thinking and work are so
important and inspirational that it is great to see
someone do it. Well done!
Reply
larrym says
9th May 2019 at 9:56 pm
Many thanks, Steve. There’s so much material,

so many angles one could take when talking
about his work. I’ve not even come close to
digesting even a small percentage. Thanks for
taking the time to read!
Reply
Andrew Mackay says

8th May 2019 at 4:01 pm
Thanks for the effort you put into this one Larry. I
always appreciate your humility and the “centred
place of innate motivational integrity” that both
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you and Bucky come from.

Andrew
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Reply
larrym says
9th May 2019 at 9:58 pm
Hi Andrew, many thanks for your very kind

comment. I really enjoyed putting this one
together. More to come!
Reply
Gaelle1947 says
6th May 2019 at 7:25 pm
This was a wonderful synopsis of Buckminster

Fuller’s guiding principles. He is someone in whom I
became interested years ago and I’ve listened to
some old recordings of his talks. It’s important that
the wise minds of yore are not forgotten so thank
you for resurrecting his helpful advice. If indeed
we’ve made it out of our dark caves and are slowly
becoming more civilized, more enlightened, it is
due to those great minds who were ahead of their
times. In the words of Isaac Newton: “If I have seen
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further than others, it is by standing upon the

shoulders of giants.”
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Reply
larrym says
9th May 2019 at 10:05 pm
I’ve had this strong feeling for a long time that

this current model of human being (us) will
expire soon. I think it has to in order that
humanity evolves to the next stage. Besides,
en masse, we just don’t seem to grasp the
depth of the argument put forward by the
likes of Fuller.
Good to hear from you again Gaelle, I hope

you’ve been well!
Reply
Bobby Kountz says

6th May 2019 at 6:04 pm
Incredible article Larry!

Thank you for the comprehensive review. I found it
both informative & compelling. Most importantly, I
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learned details because you took the time to write

& share.
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Bobby-
Reply
larrym says
6th May 2019 at 6:21 pm
Ah Bob, thanks for reading my friend! Good to

hear from you.
Reply
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The 22 Self Disciplines of Buckminster Fuller - Larry G. Maguire

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The 22 Self Disciplines of Buckminster Fuller - Larry G. Maguire https://larrygmaguire.

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The 22 Self Disciplines of Buckminster

6TH MAY 2019 by LARRY G. MAGUIRE — 12 COMMENTS

spinal meningitis. Now his business had failed, leaving

READER BONUS: DOWNLOAD THIS ARTICLE IN PDF

I am not precisely sure how I came first to read the

Fuller believed in a Universe that was generative

the inherent ability to provide substantially for all

If an individual free from the constraints of dogma

My personal assertion is that given the current

I want to be wrong but given our current stage of

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Who Was Buckminster

After leaving the Navy after WW1, Fuller entered

became profoundly depressed and contemplated

“ I live on Earth at present,

Buckminster Fuller realised that society was

Fuller subsequently decided to dedicate his life to

destruction, and poverty. Throughout his life, Fuller

Buckminster Fuller's Geodesic Dome Patent 1965

others out there on the ragged rim of life who have

We have to be careful, however, not to

Other things Fuller wrote about such as

At the point in 1927 where Fuller found himself at

young family, penniless, and as he put it; “a

In Chapter 4 of Critical Path, Fuller outlines 22

Self Discipline #1: Never

spontaneously attempted by youth.

Self Discipline #2: Love thy

Self Discipline #3: Life is hard

Self Discipline #4: Follow the

The rules seemed to be written by others and

Self Discipline #5: Learn to

Self Discipline #6: Form an

others saw and to deal as objectively as possible,

Today, Fuller's Chronofile is housed at Stanford

Self Discipline #7: See oneself

A brave move, something that goes against popular

Self Discipline #8: Serve all

Perhaps an idealistic and naive position to take,

He insists that the decision was not taken

Self Discipline #9: Do your

Self Discipline #10: Never at

He sought to pursue and develop his ideas for the

“ Every atom and electron

Self Discipline #11:

afflictions so much so that he could emancipate

These new inventions would provide society with

Self Discipline #12: Never

He went on to say that he would never hire agents

Self Discipline #13: Develop

Fuller assumed that nature and the universe as a

Self Discipline #14: Accept the

Self Discipline #15: Learn

Self Discipline #16: Waste no

As mentioned above, Fuller sought not to ponder

Self Discipline #17: Document

Self Discipline #18:

Self Discipline #19: Educate

the comprehensive education of himself. He sought

It didn't stop there. Fuller undertook to consume all

Self Discipline #20: Operate

Self Discipline #21: Provide