Being the trimtab for social change (DW #923)

communication relationships May 26, 2021

We are using the metaphor of the trimtab to inspire us to affect personal changes in our lives.

However, it is very important to point out that the way Fuller first used it, he meant it as a metaphor for how a single individual can be a force for change in society.

In an interview, the interviewer asked him a question about how human beings can live with "a sense of the individual’s impotence to affect events, to improve or even influence our own welfare, let alone that of society," Fuller offered the metaphor of being the trimtab in society:

" . . . the little individual can be a trim tab. . . But if you’re doing dynamic things mentally, the fact is that you can just put your foot out like that and the whole big ship of state is going to go. So I said, "Call me Trim Tab."

The truth is that you get the low pressure to do things, rather than getting on the other side and trying to push the bow of the ship around. And you build that low pressure by getting rid of a little nonsense, getting rid of things that don’t work and aren’t true until you start to get that trim-tab motion. It works every time. That’s the grand strategy you’re going for. So I’m positive that what you do with yourself, just the little things you do yourself, these are the things that count. To be a real trim tab, you’ve got to start with yourself, and soon you’ll feel that low pressure, and suddenly things begin to work in a beautiful way. Of course, they happen only when you’re dealing with really great integrity".

Such pertinent advice for those of us feeling frustrated at the lack of our ability to stop the atrocities going on in the world.

Let us focus on being the trimtab.

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Being the trimtab for social change (DW #923)

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