INSPIRATION

By Lawrence Wilson, MD

© June 2008, The Center For Development

For me, to be inspired is most important. This is especially true because institutions that are supposed to inspire us as children and adults such as schools, television, music and newspapers, often do not do so today.

Each person will find different sources of inspiration. In this article, I will mention books and individuals who have inspired me. May they do the same for you, and may you go on to inspire others.

R. BUCKMINSTER FULLER

Born in 1895, “Bucky”, as he was called, was one of the most brilliant visionaries of the twentieth century. He worked as an architect, designer, scientist and was a very positive thinker as well.

After being kicked out of college twice, he went to work in a factory and was soon inventing better machinery and loving every minute of it. He went on to develop a whole series of items from a car that got 100 miles to a gallon of gas (in 1933) with a conventional engine to the geodesic dome.

He began the manufactured and mobile home industry and predicted the computer revolution we have today. He coined the term 'spaceship earth'. He was at least 100 years ahead of his time in his positive attitude and his mode of thinking about all problems as “systems”, not isolated incidents.

He was an admiral in the US Navy, which he said taught him to think big and to think in terms of systems. He was forever grateful for his Navy experience, although he was not a war-mongering person ever, and believed that if people had more truth they would stop wasting their time, money and manpower on waring activities.

What distinguished him the most for me, however, was his positive view about our world and the incredible benefits of technology to lift the world out of poverty and misery. When I first started reading his books, I had a very dim view of science, technology and the military. He helped me understand the truth about these and much more.

Buckminster Fuller stands in stark contrast to to all the doomsayers - and he has been proven correct over and over again. Whether it is about pollution, oil prices, the wars we fight or other issues, he had a positive attitude and his predictions have proven correct. People want goods and services and modern capitalism and science are the only ways to provide these in large amounts to large groups of people.

Bucky backed up all his assertions with impeccable science, something that is so often lacking today. He was a researcher and published volumes of information about the world, its energy situation, its resources and much more.

Doing more with less, he said, is the key to humanity's survival. Though not easy to read, he wrote a dozen or so books that may be found in libraries or used book stores.

Through several personal crises (he was alcoholic until age 40) he never lost his faith in the power of truth and integrity, the title of one of his books. He always asked what one, not-powerful person could do to change the world. He used the analogy of the tiny rudder on a large ship turning the entire ship around to illustrate how anyone with understanding, could cause change far out of proportion to his or her status or position in the world. He truly valued the “little guy and gal” and showed exactly why these are the people who must come forward and learn the truths of our world.

BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Booker Washington grew up as a slave at the end of the Civil War. He managed to talk a white lady into teaching him to read. He learned to love reading and became a great inspiration to many throughout the United States.

He began with little but a dream of helping his people, and eventually founded the Tuskeegee Institute in Alabama to educate black people. Not only did it accomplish its purpose, but it pioneered many new educational ideas for the entire United States.

Booker Washington's story is dramatic and proves that nothing can keep a good person down. Everything the man thought and said is worthwhile listening to. He tells about it in his book, Up From Slavery.

This book should be required reading for everyone, but particularly African-Americans. It is so different from what the political leaders shout about today and Booker Washington’s methods are far better than what children a re taught in school today in many instances.

It should be required reading for both inspiration and for practical guidance on how to live your life. I recall him saying that discrimination will always exist. Don’t pay attention to it. Instead, he said, spend your time and energy becoming very responsible and skilled at what you do. Then you will win the respect of good people everywhere. You will never win the respect of bigots, so don't bother with them.

Many more lessons can be taken from the life of Booker Washington, one of the greatest Americans who ever lived.

GEORGE WASHINGTON CARVER

George Carver is another dramatic, amazing man who was also born a slave at the end of the Civil War. Only he was orphaned a few days after birth when his mother was kidnapped. The kidnappers did not want the baby, so he was literally tossed off a horse and left to die by the roadside.

A white woman found him and she and her husband raised him.in Missouri. From early childhood, Carver had an unusual ability to make plants grow and eventually became a fabulous soil scientist.

He saw how cotton was ruining the soil in the south and taught farmers to grow legumes (soybeans and peanuts) to regenerated the soil. He single handedly developed the peanut as a crop for southern farmers, and came up with some 300 foods and dishes made entirely of peanuts.

His story, like that of Booker Washington, is one of incredible success against great odds and truly inspiring. Look for his biography in the library.

MARIA MONTESSORI

Ms. Montessori was an Italian medical student at the beginning of the twentieth century. One day she was assigned to care for a group of impoverished and sickly 2-year-old orphans.

Though she was to help them medically, she did far more than this. She had been told these children would never go to school and were not worth trying to teach anything to. To everyone’s surprise, she soon had them learning at rates much faster than what could be done with regular educational methods.

One secret was to allow the natural rhythms or cycles of attention of the children to remain unbroken. Another was to realize that children at different ages learned differently. Another lesson was that what she (the teacher) considered important often had nothing to do with what the children considered to be 'the lesson'.

Her approach was far more child-centered or natural or holistic than most education. Instead of trying to fill the children’s head with knowledge or even skills, her approach involved vastly more respect for the natural learning patterns of children. This she wrote about in her books.

She developed the Montessori method of education, which has yet to be understood by the vast majority of educators. One reason for the failures of 'modern schooling' is precisely the lack of respect for the natural learning system of children.

Even among Montessori schools, her wisdom is often not fully appreciated. Her biography is available at libraries.

Readers of this website know that education is an area that is desperately in need of improvement in most nations, including America. While “Montessori schools” are definitely just a part of the answer, the lessons of Maria Montessori are incredibly inspiring for me and should be for anyone who feels sad or depairing sometimes at the wastefulness, insanity and stupidity of public education, in particular.

NIKOLA TESLA

Nikola Tesla was a contemporary of Thomas Edison. He was born around 1865 in what is today Croatia or Yugoslavia near Turkey.

While Thomas Edison was very impressive (he drove around in an electric car in 1890), Tesla lived a far more incredible life. He went to school in Europe and came to New York in the late 1880s.

Tesla, not Edison, gave the world most of the electrical inventions we take for granted. Tesla discovered alternating current, the AC motor, X-rays, radio, radar, television, microwaves, remote control and robotics, star wars technology, touch-tone dialing, the ignition coil on a car, and so much more that we still do not have in use today.

The life of Tesla is yet another inspiring story of how one pennyless man changed the world for the better through his own efforts. Several biographies of Tesla are in print and available in libraries, though his name is rarely mentioned in history texts.

DR. PAUL C. ECK

The world has been blessed with many medical and nutritional geniuses. I was fortunate to work with one of them, Dr. Paul Eck. Dr. Eck was accepted to medical school but instead preferred to study body structure at the Napropathic College in Chicago.

Dr. Eck later became a mineral researcher and brought his family to Phoenix, Arizona. An avid reader of biology and health-related material, he synthesized thousands of pages of biochemistry, physiology, naturopathy, medicine, toxicology, stress theory, systems theory and more into an integrated approach to healing he called mineral balancing science. It is the work I do today, with few modifications. I an greatly honored and privileged to have spent 14 years learning from him.

His dedication was amazing, and his brilliance was in no small part a product of that dedication. He stuck with his principles and had a grasp on human systems principles that I am still in awe of. He did little writing himself, and I ended up publishing probably the most complete book on his work.

THOMAS JEFFERSON

The entire story of the founding of America is amazing, given the odds against its success. A few determined, but badly armed farmers went up against the most powerful empire the earth had ever seen. It is a tale that unfortunately is not told to the children in school with any feeling or understanding to speak of in most cases. No wonder many of them haven’t a clue about their heritage and many of them actually hate their own nation.

America was and is a unique experiment in liberty and the rights of the individual. Most nations only give lip service to these concepts. Because this is not taught in school, America is losing this little by little. The coming election is ample evidence how far we have strayed from principles of free choice, health freedom, free enterprise capitalism and so much more.

Thomas Jefferson, along with many of the other founders of America such as Ben Franklin, John Adams, James Madison and others, were remarkable men. Their depth of understanding human behavior, government, science and more are quite astounding.

The depth of intelligence and knowledge put all modern statesmen to shame. Jefferson’s story, along with that of Adams, Madison and many of the founders of America, is also dramatic and most inspiring. Their stories are human, yet they had a vision that is rare as can be.

The wisdom of Jefferson, Washington and the others birthed a nation unlike any that had ever been seen before. Those who denigrate the founders because they were slave owners or for any other reason just demonstrate their ignorance of the men they so carelessly talk about.

Jefferson wrote quite a bit, and his writings have been collected by various editors and authors. An in-depth study of Jefferson, in particular, would be well worth the effort of anyone who wishes to understand our world today and why we, as a nation, are loved by billions and hated by those who do not want freedom for their people.

These are a few of the great souls who have inspired me. I continue to seek others, of course. However, start with these, I would suggest, and you won’t be led astray.

Too many apparently “great men and women” are just great talkers. Their philosophies, when examined carefully, are really empty and destructive. They may say beautiful words, but they agitate for class warfare and other things that are ultimately quite negative.

I suggest surrounding yourself with inspiring, uplifting books, tapes, and people. Get rid of friends, books and other items that pull you down. This will do more for your health and well-being than most treatments of all kinds.

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