I Seem to Be a Verb

Buckminster Fuller wrote "I Seem to Be a Verb" in 1970.  When I first saw the title, I thought it was very odd.  Now, it seems quite literal to me.  I am a verb, an action, a process.  My parents got the ball rolling and it grew in size and weight.  I matured.  Eventually, I will enter another phase, in which my atoms disband, probably to later join other groups in a different plant or animal or rock.  During this phase, I have awareness and the ability to think and communicate.  I could write or draw or sculpt but the artifacts of such actions will also eventually dissipate and scatter.  My ancestors and I and all my writings will always be somewhere, I think, just not forever in a format that we would call human or recognizable by humans.

I used to picture my place in life as the top tip of a pyramid.  My wife and I had children, who had children, who had children.  As it says in "The Family of Man", we two were a multitude.  Well, a small one.  But then, the sons-in-law and the grandsons-in-law, the in-law parents and grandparents-in-law appeared at family gatherings.  I began to realize that others had contributed to the children and grandchildren and great grandchildren as much as I had.  Taken together, they have contributed more than I have.  I see I am not the apex of a pyramid.  I am a point in a net:

Many people and other earlier life forms flowed into me and the flow continues through me to others after me in time.  How long has this flow been flowing?  I'm not sure but they say the latest find is older than the skeleton called Lucy, that it is about 4+ million years old.  It seems pretty clear that this planet was not habitable by life for the long time it took to cool and form oxygen and get water.  Our sun is thought to be about 5 billion years old and will probably last another 5 billion.  If earthly life has not been extinguished by then, maybe my descendants will travel out of this solar system.  I am part of an adventurous group.