In 1979 a group of UCLA scientists published a study of graduates of the est Training, “Separate Realities: A Comparative Study of Estians, Psychoanalysands, and the Untreated.” The study concluded that est graduates had a high degree of concern for others (higher than the two comparative groups in the study). In the events Bucky did for est graduates he spoke to that higher degree of concern for others, profoundly validating each person who heard him. The analogy of the trim tab to shift the course of a giant ocean liner was met with enthusiasm. Participants adopted it and immediately began applying it for themselves, choosing the difference they could personally make for themselves and for their communities. We founded The Hunger Project (committed to the end of hunger) with Bucky’s participation based on these same principles that the individual makes the difference.
Sam Daley-Harris and Jeff Bridges are well-known individuals who have demonstrated Bucky’s principles. When Sam attended a Hunger Project event in 1977 he was a music teacher in Florida. Sam was deeply moved by the idea that “the little individual” could make a difference; he declared that he would create his “own form of participation in ending hunger,” and in doing so created what has become his lifetime commitment to ending global hunger. Sam founded Results, which became the largest and most effective grass roots lobbying organization in the United States for the end of global hunger. In the late 1980s Sam met Muhammad Yunus, founder of the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, and worked in partnership with him using the network he had established with The Hunger Project to get the Grameen Bank established throughout developing nations. In 2006 the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank “for their efforts to create economic and social development from below.” Sam continues his work as Director of the Microcredit Summit Campaign.
Jeff Bridges is best known worldwide as an actor. In the early 1980s, he brought together entertainment industry leaders and Hunger Project volunteers to found the End Hunger Network with a commitment to bringing Americans together to end hunger in the United States. And he didn’t stop there. In 2010, Jeff became the national spokesperson for the No Kid Hungry Campaign, dedicated to eradicating childhood hunger in America by 2015.
These are only examples of individuals whose names you may recognize, but there are many thousands of individuals whose names you would likely not recognize who have embraced Bucky’s words and live their lives as Trim Tabs.
Bucky made it clear and accessible that every human being can make a difference. I honor him for his humanity, for his friendship, and for the legacy of possibility he leaves with us. I honor Bucky for having created in himself the humanity that let him say “Call me Trim Tab” in a way that every individual can continue to take actions that make a difference, putting their own feet out to turn the great ship.
WERNER ERHARD is an original thinker whose ideas have transformed the effectiveness and quality of life for millions of people and thousands of organizations. While popularly known for the est Training and the Forum, his models have been the source of new perspectives by thinkers and practitioners in fields as diverse as philosophy, business, education, psychotherapy, third world development, medicine, conflict resolution, and community building. He lectures widely, and has served as consultant to various corporations, foundations, and governmental agencies. Erhard was acknowledged in Forbes Magazine's 40th Anniversary issue as one of the major contributors to modern management thinking, and is a recipient of the Mahatma Gandhi Humanitarian Award. www.wernererhard.net.
By Justine Willis Toms
GUEST COMMENTATOR
In the 1970s when my husband Michael and I were in the early years of our broadcasting work, we had the enormous pleasure of spending many hours with R. Buckminster Fuller. Even though he was quite small in stature, his dynamic energy would fill a room. He would call everyone, men and women, “darling,” and insist they call him Bucky.
I was too shy to attend the first interview New Dimensions had with Bucky, so the first time I met him was at a reception in his honor, hosted by artist Ruth Asawa, in San Francisco. In those days, when entering new surroundings filled with strangers, it was my strategy to find a corner in which to hide.
I was in my corner when Michael and Bucky, who were talking together on the other side of the room, turned to face me. Then to my astonishment and panic, Bucky proceeded to navigate around tables, chairs, and couches, unmistakably heading in my direction. Arriving in front of me, he put out his hand and said, “I’m Bucky Fuller.”
I remember thinking how he needed no introduction; after all, everyone in the room knew who he was. But I was soon to learn how unassuming and humble he was. It was obvious he was not puffed up by his fame.
Then he made an extraordinary statement. He said that sitting down with Michael for the radio interview was an evolutionary event. I was amazed by this acknowledgement. It was my first inkling of the potential of our work to make a contribution to others. Fuller was concerned about sustainability and human survival and was optimistic about humanity’s future. Now, he was finding a new generation to join him in this most worthy endeavor. It was at that point he became a mentor for us and our work.
Since then I’ve spent many hours transcribing the numerous radio dialogues we’ve had with him. I was also privileged to participate in the weekend events called “Being with Bucky,” cosponsored by his grandson, Jaime Snyder, and New Dimensions.
During those events it was sometimes difficult to follow his explanations. He talked at the clip of a racehorse going for the finish line. When he got into the complexity of the math that made up his Synergetics, I would feel lost. But that didn’t matter because he was a transmitter. By virtue of his energy and enthusiasm, and his utter confidence in my ability to grasp what he was talking about, he could bypass my overwhelmed mind, and pour understanding and hope directly into my heart.
One concept of Bucky’s that has remained a touchstone for me over the years is that we can all be “trimtabs,”—that is we can play a role in changing the course of things. A trimtab is a small device that is part of the rudder mechanism, which plays a crucial role in controlling the direction of a ship or an airplane. The metaphor was so important to him that, “Call Me Trimtab,” serves as the epitaph on his gravestone.
In an interview with Barry Farrell published in Playboy in February 1972, Bucky said:
“Something hit me very hard once, thinking about what one little man could do. Think of the Queen Mary; the whole ship goes by and then comes the rudder. And there’s a tiny thing at the edge of the rudder called a trimtab.
It’s a miniature rudder. Just moving the little trimtab builds a low pressure that pulls the rudder around. Takes almost no effort at all. So I said that the little individual can be a trimtab. Society thinks it’s going right by you, that it’s left you altogether. But if you’re doing dynamic things mentally, the fact is that you can just put your foot out like that, and the whole big ship of state is going to go.”
Farrell also quoted him as having said at the Buckminster Fuller Institute,
“When I thought about steering the course of the ‘Spaceship Earth’ and all of humanity, I saw most people trying to turn the boat by pushing the bow around. I saw that by being all the way at the tail of the ship, by just kicking my foot to one side or the other, I could create the ‘low pressure’ which would turn the whole ship.”
To understand this phenomenon, imagine a large ocean-going ship. To turn this enormous vessel