Buckminster Fuller: Call him Trim Tab



(En.wikipedia Photo by Shriramk)

“Call me Ishmael” has got to be one of the most famous phrases in the history of literature.  Reminiscent of this is the phrase on Buckminster Fuller’s tombstone:  Call me Trim Tab.

Although “Trim Tab” does not have the biblical ring to it that “Ishmael” does, it nevertheless carries a lot of weight.  And that was R. Buckminster (Bucky) Fuller’s point.  For such a seemingly tiny part of the overall works, the trim tab (“rudder within the rudder” of a ship or aircraft) plays a huge part in determining directional outcomes.

Fuller was fond of comparing each person’s potential to effect

positive social change to the almost-effortless movement of the trim tab.  He metaphorically described it in this manner:  Just moving the little trim tab builds a low pressure that pulls the rudder around…  So I said that the little individual can be a trim tab…  if you’re doing dynamic things mentally…

Fuller himself was certainly no slouch when it came to mental gymnastics.  He was an environmental activist long before it became “fashionable.”  He was particularly focused upon the efficient use of resources in architecture and engineering.  He is most well-known for his naming and further development of Bauersfeld’s geodesic-dome design.  Wikipedia describes it as “a spherical or partial-spherical shell structure or lattice

shell based on a network of great circles (geodesics) on a sphere.”

Although Fuller was often focused upon life in this world, he also wondered about life in general.  His grandfather was a Unitarian minister - and he, too, was a Unitarian.  His definition of “Universe” (which he always capitalized, but never prefaced with “the”) was this:  the aggregate of all humanity’s consciously apprehended and communicated (to self or others) Experiences.  His 1970 book, I Seem to be a Verb, included this quote:  I live on Earth at present, and I don’t know what I am…  I am not a thing - a noun.  I seem to be a verb, an evolutionary process…

Until this is all sorted out, the proper noun “Trim Tab” will have to suffice…

Resources

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckminster_Fuller

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trim_tab

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geodesic_dome

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitarianism

Copyright July 12, 2011 by Linda Van Slyke   All Rights Reserved