“In 1929 I began to consider what the little individual could do on behalf of his fellow man that government and corporations could not do. It became evident that the individual was the only one that could deliberately find the time to think in a cosmically adequate manner. Each human has his lifetime to invest. If he commits to operations in cosmic integrities he will find himself participating in nature’s own formulations and will realize the potentials of her various freedoms and choices, to be employed to the advantage of all human beings to come, in order that humans may fulfill their cosmic functioning on board of our planet.”
—R. Buckminster Fuller
Certainly Buckminster Fuller was no “ordinary individual,” as he liked to think of himself, but he did not consider any other humans as potentially less capable than himself. Each of us has our unique contribution to make, which is taking the next step for ourselves. Such a step is never arbitrary, in that it occurs inside of a given set of circumstances, and is given to us by the totality of our unique life experiences and understandings. But it is also voluntarily chosen. It is possible to seek one’s calling, to discover one’s inner purpose, but ultimately we also have to choose it.
In our case this means declaring ourselves as choosing freely to serve the public good through the creation of a nonprofit “solutions engine” for regenerating human communities. Our first such solution is New Jersey PACE, which is designed to attract new capital investment to communities in New Jersey for the purposes of rebuilding and upgrading the commercial, industrial, institutional, and multifamily properties that serve all of us. Beyond that, we see launching a new currency, and a new initiative to bring people together to design a new future.
Your immediate purpose may be entirely different. One of the aims of our project is to create a foundation for people serving different worthwhile aims to collaborate with each other, in order to contribute more effectively to designing a flourishing future for the planet. In principle, everyone has a contribution to make to this, and can choose this or other platforms as the most appropriate vehicles for accomplishing their goals. We’re simply offering what we feel is most likely to be useful, and welcome the participation of others on their own terms.
What’s at stake here is what we consider to be “our contribution.” What any one individual contributes to the “common wealth,” or the public wellbeing as a whole, is sometimes recognized but rarely compensated. Our goal is to make this behavior more fully rewarded, and leveraged for the purpose of creating further public wealth.
Some of this will be reflected in these pages, but over time more and more of our work will be migrated to WorldThatWorks.org, which is currently “under construction” but nevertheless open for discussion and comment.
