That is to say that despair does not seem to be in any way potentially to be productive.

I think that I feel that I have no choice but to operate under the illusion, which may be a delusion, that we can somehow get past the destruction that we have brought and that we are causing today.

Serendipity looks a lot like creativity, at least at a distance, and if I can tap into these ways in which one thing resembles another.

All sorts of problems and the interconnectedness between them that [Buckminster Fuller] was able to perceive sometimes rightly, often wrongly, always interestingly and also the fact that he was looking at solutions often that were not feasible in his own time but potentially could be applied today.

I would say that by being irresponsibly disorganized, by saying yes to everything and then seeing how it all works out, that I end up in some place closer to where I had imagined I would be, before I started to study philosophy, than I would ever be had I followed through in any sort of responsible way, and become the professor of philosophy that I shudder to think I might potentially have become.

Since I live part of the year in Italy, I live in a society in which I'm the optimistic American relative to the people who I'm around there. And that has actually brought to my attention the fact that I do have some sort of optimism and has made me think about it enough that I can attempt an answer.

We're back around to [Buckminster] Fuller again. Back around to the recognition of patterns, which may be true or may not be. But nevertheless, have enough of a semblance that they're worth exploring. That, to me, is where my work begins.