Vacuum State: Bucky Group 2

Monday, March 26, 2007

Bucky Group 2

"Does humanity have a chance to survive lastingly and successfully on planet Earth, and if so, how?" Buckminster Fuller

Finally found a Sunday (18th March 2007) that I am free to attend the Bucky Group session at MacRitchie Reservoir in Singapore. The Bucky Group is a group of people from varied walks of life like technologists, managers, marketeers, entrepreneurs, retirees, ...etc. The Bucky Group members have been meeting up to jog, walk, exercise and discuss chapters of books written by Mr Buckminister Fuller for the last 12 years.

Anyone interested in the works of Bucky can just turn up at 7.30am every Sunday morning to join in.

For this Sunday, we discussed parts of Chapter 2 "The Music of the New Life" from the the book, "Utopia or Oblivion - The Prospects for Humanity". In the chapter, I am particularly impressed with his paragraphs about "Up" and "Down". To Bucky, there is no 'up' and 'down', but only 'in' and 'out', since the world is round.

He also commented on his experience in the 1950s when he heard MIT scientists admiring how beautiful the sunset was to their loved ones. Whilst Bucky said that he wouldn't think of it much if those words would have come from lay people, but as scientists they have not brought the scientific discovery that the world is round into the reflex. So after 500 years, since the discovery, scientists had yet to gear their minds into their own theories. Without which they will be unable to correct conceptual realisations by the child. They were apparently ignorant of the fact that the child can most easily learn to see things correctly only if he is spoken to intelligently right from the beginning - that's the ultimate lesson I learned from the morning's reading and discussions.

For this Sunday, I snapped some pixs instead of doing my usual jog on the juggle trails.

This nature reserve is primary forest that has not been covered by the last ice age and is home to more plant species than the whole of North America has.

This is a sluice gate station. It regulates the water level in this reservoir.

Sunrise...
err... I mean we are revolving towards the sun :).

I don't know the name of these plant, but in the army, we called them "CB" leaves.
We were warned not to use them for camouflage because it will make us look like a walking Christmas tree! :)

Close up of the leaf.
In the 50s and 60s, food hawkers used these leaves to wrap cooked food
There were also people harvesting these leaves from the wild
to sell them to the street side hawkers.
"In the old days, we didn't need money to start a business",
as one old man said when he saw these leaves in the wild

It is again one of those Sundays when one of the members bring loads of orchids to give to all of us. I grabbed some of the purple and white ones.

As in most activities Singaporean, we usually either start or end with some 'makan' (eating), usually at hawker centers.
Unfortunately they don't use "CB" leaves to serve the food on anymore.
Nowadays, they use styrofoam boxes. *sigh*
.

This Sunday's session was a little bit shortened, as some of the members were rushing off to help in a charity event. Chris and I were also in a hurry to leave for the Kalachakra course conducted by Sri Sai Swami Kaleshwar's students.

Lastly, I have a video shot of some creatures at the Reservoir fringes... :)