Why Do I Do What I Do?
Have you ever been reading a newspaper article and it seemed to jump right out and grab you as though the writer had written the words especially for your personal enlightenment? It happened to me this morning. My wife, Carter Seaton, and I read The Huntington Herald-Dispatch every morning with our coffee. On Sundays, we read the Huntington paper and The Charleston Gazette-Mail. We enjoy our coffee while discussing local and statewide issues. 
A column in the Gazette-Mail by Rebecca Kimmons, titled “West Virginians don’t have to fight over culture", caught my eye. While reading the column, it struck me that she had clearly answered questions I have been asking myself for the last two-years – “Why do I continue to battle to eliminate litter and solid waste on the streets and in the alleys of Huntington?” “Why do I care?
Here is what Ms. Kimmons wrote that answered my questions. “Creative West Virginians, those born here, those who got here as soon as they could, and those who are about to come, do not have to ask permission to spawn a good idea. They take their cues from the spirit of Buckminster Fuller, who answered a 10-year-old boy’s question as to whether the futurist was a “doer or a thinker.” (Now for the pearl of wisdom that gave me the answers.)
“The things to do are,” Fuller said, “things that need doing, things that you see need to be done, and the things that no one else seems to see that need to be done.”
Fuller encouraged the boy to “conceive your own way of doing that which needs to be done – that which no one else has told you to do, or how to do it. This will bring out the real you that often gets buried inside a character that has acquired a superficial array of behaviors induced or imposed by others on the individual.”
Ms. Kimmons continued in her column, “In other writings, Fuller exhorts the reader to “take the initiative, Get to work, and above all, cooperate and don’t hold back on one another or try to gain at the expense of another. Any success in such lopsidedness will be increasingly short-lived … These are not man made laws. They are the infinitely accommodative (sic) laws of the intellectual integrity governing [the] universe.”
So, why do I strive to educate (by example) Huntington’s citizens that we all must participate to help clean up our neighborhoods and our city? In short, it brings out the real me that got buried inside as I acquired a superficial array of behaviors induced or imposed by others. It is so freeing to recognize and, then, resolve to do something that needs to be done. Will you join me? Adopt YOUR Block – Be a Litter-Gitter!
Comments?
(Email me at richardcobbsr@comcast.net, or call me at home - 523-7902, and I will deliver a litter-stick to your front door. All you have to agree to do is keep the block on which you live free of cigarette butts and litter.)
A column in the Gazette-Mail by Rebecca Kimmons, titled “West Virginians don’t have to fight over culture", caught my eye. While reading the column, it struck me that she had clearly answered questions I have been asking myself for the last two-years – “Why do I continue to battle to eliminate litter and solid waste on the streets and in the alleys of Huntington?” “Why do I care?
Here is what Ms. Kimmons wrote that answered my questions. “Creative West Virginians, those born here, those who got here as soon as they could, and those who are about to come, do not have to ask permission to spawn a good idea. They take their cues from the spirit of Buckminster Fuller, who answered a 10-year-old boy’s question as to whether the futurist was a “doer or a thinker.” (Now for the pearl of wisdom that gave me the answers.)
“The things to do are,” Fuller said, “things that need doing, things that you see need to be done, and the things that no one else seems to see that need to be done.”
Fuller encouraged the boy to “conceive your own way of doing that which needs to be done – that which no one else has told you to do, or how to do it. This will bring out the real you that often gets buried inside a character that has acquired a superficial array of behaviors induced or imposed by others on the individual.”
Ms. Kimmons continued in her column, “In other writings, Fuller exhorts the reader to “take the initiative, Get to work, and above all, cooperate and don’t hold back on one another or try to gain at the expense of another. Any success in such lopsidedness will be increasingly short-lived … These are not man made laws. They are the infinitely accommodative (sic) laws of the intellectual integrity governing [the] universe.”
So, why do I strive to educate (by example) Huntington’s citizens that we all must participate to help clean up our neighborhoods and our city? In short, it brings out the real me that got buried inside as I acquired a superficial array of behaviors induced or imposed by others. It is so freeing to recognize and, then, resolve to do something that needs to be done. Will you join me? Adopt YOUR Block – Be a Litter-Gitter!
Comments?
(Email me at richardcobbsr@comcast.net, or call me at home - 523-7902, and I will deliver a litter-stick to your front door. All you have to agree to do is keep the block on which you live free of cigarette butts and litter.)
posted C. Richard Cobb, Sr. @10:43 AM 
