

The Best Way to Solve a Problem: Give Up - Lavatube
http://www.illuminatedmind.net/2008/12/11/the-best-way-to-solve-a-problem-give-up/

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miles
Reminds me of this great story from Bucky Fuller:

You Do Not Belong to You. You Belong to the Universe.

In 1927 my wife and I were living in Chicago, in a one room apartment on
Belmont Avenue. We were penniless. Five years earlier, our first daughter had
died on her fourth birthday, having gone through infantile paralysis, flu,
spinal meningitis and pneumonia. It was a long and terribly painful thing for
us when she died. About that time my father-in-law, an architect, had invented
a new building material. I liked this man very much - and I thought his
invention would be useful. I finally organized four small factories around the
country making this material.

I worked terribly hard, but the minute I got through work for the day - I
guess I was in a lot of pain because our child had died - I'd go off and drink
all night. I had enough health, somehow, to carry on. But the company failed
and some very prominent people had bet money on me. So I was in disgrace and
utterly broke. At that moment a new life, our daughter Allegra, came to us.

I appeared to myself, in retrospect, a horrendous mess. I found myself saying,
"AM I an utter failure? If so, I had better get myself out of the way, so at
least my wife and baby can be taken care of by my family." At that time
Lincoln Park, right on Lake Michigan, was one of my favorite places. I would
run through the park at night, and I knew every inch of the lake edge. So I
knew just where to go when I decided to throw myself into the lake, fully
intending to commit suicide.

I stood by the side of the lake, hesitating. All my life, at home and in
school, I had been admonished: "Never mind what you think! Listen! We are
trying to teach you!" But by that lake side I was forced to do some thinking
on my own.

I asked myself what a little penniless human being with a remaining life
expectancy of only 10 years - I was 32 and the life expectancy of those born,
as I was in 1895 was 42 - could do for humanity that great corporations and
great political states cannot do. Answering myself, I said: "The individual
can take initiatives without anyone's permission."

I told myself: "You do not have the right to eliminate yourself, you do not
belong to you. You belong to the universe. The significance of you will
forever remain obscure to you, but you may assume that you are fulfilling your
significance if you apply yourself to converting all your experience to the
highest advantage of others." So I vowed to keep myself alive, but only if I
would never use me again for just me - each one of us is born of two, and we
really belong to each other. I vowed to do my own thinking instead of trying
to accommodate everyone else's opinions, credos and theories. I vowed to apply
my inventory of experiences to the solving of problems that affect everyone
aboard planet earth.

I didn't want to waste a second, so I slept that way that certain animals
sleep: lying down as soon as I was tired, sleeping a half hour every six
hours. I also decided to hold a moratorium on speech. It was very tough on my
wife, but for two years in that Chicago tenement I didn't allow myself to use
words. I wanted to force myself back to the point where I could understand
what I was thinking.

I decided to forget about earning a living. It seemed to me that humans are
honey-money bees, doing the right things for the wrong reasons, just as the
bee pollinates the flower.

Released from the idea of earning a living, I was able to address problems in
the biggest way. I decided to commit myself to the invention and development
of physical artifacts to reform the environment. I decided that a plurality of
such artifacts had the potential to evoke humanity's most intelligent,
interconsiderate qualities. It became obvious that if I worked always and only
for all humanity, I would be optimally effective. I'd be doing what nature
wanted me to do, and nature would literally support me.

Once I decided to do my own thinking, the first question I had to ask myself
was: "Do you have any experiential evidence that forces you to assume greater
intellect operating in the universe?" My answer was swift and positive.
Experience demonstrated an orderliness of interactive, exceptionless
principles. I was overwhelmed by this, and more convinced that my purpose was
to abet the inclusion of human beings in the design of the universe.

I'm absolutely convinced that everything that has happened to me since that
time has been through my commitment to this greater integrity.

Many times I've chickened, and everything inevitably goes wrong. But then,
when I return to my commitment, my life suddenly works again. There's
something of the miraculous in that.

~~~
wallflower
Thanks for sharing this story. I've always admire Buckminster Fuller's work
and this makes me respect him more.

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wallflower
If you resonated with the article's points, the author's philosophy resonates
with Stoicism.

<http://classics.mit.edu/Epictetus/epicench.html>

[http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2009/04/13/stoicism-101...](http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2009/04/13/stoicism-101-a-practical-
guide-for-entrepreneurs/)

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Paton
Good points. People care too much about pointless things. People, too often,
live in the short-term while ignoring the long-term. Instant gratification
doesn't lead toward long-term satisfaction

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christopherdone
I just temporarily gave up on something I was trying to program. That's why
I'm on Hacker News. Thanks for backing me up, random Internet blogger!

