My Pilgrimage to Bamboo River (Part 5)

The transition to 2010 was one of the most joyous New Year celebrations within recent memory.

I heard the fireworks go off from my bed in Ward 4A at the Sungai Buloh (Bamboo River) Hospital and felt fully expanded and exultant.

I had just been resurrected, reborn, renewed – after being in a life-and-death medical crisis for nearly a week, most of it spent comatose in Intensive Care.

Now I felt bubbly and sparkly and ready to go… anywhere!

My brain was processing data much faster than usual. I suddenly realized that, between yesterday and today, an entirely new reality option had blossomed. My neural circuitry had been cleansed of gunk and my biocomputer had had a complete systems upgrade.

Whilst a great number of earth humans remain locked in step with the analog world, millions others are now fully functional in the digital universe where information that used to occupy gargantuan libraries can be compressed and stored in a flashdrive smaller than a lipstick.

In the analog world it’s hard work storing and preserving master prints of films, for instance – takes up row and rows of shelves and each film will take up at least two reels weighing several kilos.

In the digital world you can store hundreds of full-length feature movies in a portable drive the size of your wallet. Not only that, you can then compress the data and upload these movies on some videostreaming site where millions can access it either for free or for a small fee.

My adoptive grandfather, holistic visionary R. Buckminster Fuller, was two or three generations ahead of his time. He had speculated on all these possibilities at the midpoint of the 20th century when computers first began to be used for academic research and Macintosh inventor Steve Jobs was but a gleam in his father’s eye.

Bucky spoke excitedly about “more-for-lessing” – achieving greater results with less effort through the savvy use of interactive, interconnected, self-regenerating synergetic circuitry.

You can see how this works via replication: millions of manhours go into initial research and development of new tech, but once the prototype is finetuned and tested, it can be endlessly replicated till the cost of an Intel chip is far lower than that of a chocolate chip cookie. That's why computers that used to cost $10,000 can now be sold for $500 - and yet pack 50,000 times the data processing power.

As Bucky figured so many decades ago, there are actually far more than enough resources to support all life on earth without any necessity for energy competition and conflict.

Lack and poverty can be made obsolete, Bucky realized. They continue to exist only because that makes certain privileged classes feel more fortunate. Old habits die hard. In the digital age, feudal power hierarchies exist only on the inertia of a cruel and murky past.

In recent days more and more people have been dropping Buckminster Fuller’s name – as a result of having attended self-regenerating workshops like Money & You (a program largely inspired by Bucky’s monumentally innovative work).

Perhaps not many actually understand what Bucky was on to – but not wishing to appear slow to others, they have been nodding in agreement. If you truly understood what the man was saying, you’d be floating several inches above the ground in ecstasy, celebrating the end of drudgery, slavery and the unnecessary evil of having to “earn a living” according to the dictates of a top-heavy dinosaurian power structure.

Wide awake in the hospital ward, I had spent hours paying tribute to all the innovators and creative geniuses who have ever touched my life and inspired me. From Walt Disney, Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, Orson Welles, Robert Heinlein, and Robert Anton Wilson - to Mozart, Beethoven, Stravinsky, Zappa, John Lennon, George Gershwin, Leonard Bernstein, and Bobby McFerrin – we are the fortunate heirs to infinitely vast riches of the imagination just ripe for the havesting.

Don’t forget scientific pioneers like Leonardo Da Vinci, Nikola Tesla, Faraday, Graham-Bell and Steve Jobs. Try spending 30 minutes thinking about all these great humans whose work has contributed to making our lives so much easier and potentially more meaningful than those of our remote ancestors who had to constantly worry about mere survival. You’ll undoubtedly begin to feel a profound sense of gratitude for your rich genetic, cultural and spiritual heritage.

Although I have always gravitated towards the arts and humanities, my interest in scientific research and technological innovation keeps me more or less up to date on what’s happening at the cutting edge. When printed circuits appeared they made it possible to miniaturize and transistorize, so that once bulky equipment became more and more portable.

Look at the clutter and tangle of wires and interconnectors in an analog recording studio or film set – and compare it with the tidy elegance of a digital device like Apple’s iPad.


The new generation of Intel chips have achieved superconductivity through the medium of ionized air itself, thereby formally ushering in the Aquarian Age wherein the Water-Bearer symbolizes universal dissemination of life-enhancing information through the element Air, which represents Intelligence itself.

The three most ubiquitous substances on this planet are water, air… and the biomagnetically supercharged gravitational force we infuse with emotional content and call LOVE. That's right, folks - that ambiguous four-letter word we have so glibly tossed around to sell chocolates and roses every Valentine's Day holds the key to our ultimate liberation from what James Joyce called the nightmare of history.

Love - the vital, emotionally-charged gravitational force which holds planets in orbit around suns, and suns in orbit around galactic centers - and which is the underlying basis and reason for Creation itself - is actually all we need. The Beatles were right.

It makes sense that we swiftly phase out the use of fossil fuels (and I include enriched uranium in this category). Apart from the obvious benefits of harnessing solar and wind power, we can derive all manner of power from water simply by learning to control the separation of hydrogen from oxygen.


As we proceed further into the Aquarian Age, our collective thought fields will prove to be a force that can be harnessed like a team of horses. By consciously attuning and harmonizing our collective thought fields, we will attain a telepathically coherent communityhood wherein petty ego conflicts are transcended and our wills focused like a laser to swiftly manifest desired goals.

If we replace our pre-programmed tribal fears, hostilities and suspicions with affection, mutual attraction and profound love for one another – imagine the vast power at our disposal.


That, folks, is the way forward: the path to limitless abundance, beyond lack and scarcity, beyond hunger and homelessness – and existential angst. It is NOT a pipe dream. It’s the blueprint of a New Heaven and a New Earth, restored to pristine health and beauty - and gladly supporting and nourishing all the lifeforms that call her home.

[Part 6]