I can scratch something off my bucket list –> The Venus Project

Been there done that, I can scratch ‘meet Jacques Fresco and The Venus Project’ off my bucket list.

(In het Nederlands lezen? Scroll naar beneden)

I have been a fan of the Venus Project for 5 years now. Maybe you’ve heard of it, maybe not. In short, Jacques Fresco is a visionair. He is a technical engineer and a behaviour specialist and he created from these point of views complete blueprints of a ‘new world’. He called his philosophy Resource Based Economy and the blueprints he created are from buildings and complete cities, based on this philosophy. Important to know is that it’s not about the technical aspects (even though it’s really impressive), but it’s all about the social changes he wants to achieve. The technique should serve this purpose.

Here you see some of the designs, but for more information take a look at: https://www.thevenusproject.com/

In these five years that I’ve been a fan, I really wanted to meet Jacques Fresco in real life. A couple of weeks ago I thought about it again and I sent them an email with the question if this is possible. Apparently it is quite easy, Jacques gives a seminar and tour at his Research Center in Venus (Florida) every Saturday. The only thing to do is to let them know that you want to join in. Their advice was to come quick because they couldn’t guarantee me that he can do this for a long time, because he is 100 (!!) years old. It didn’t take much time for me to decide to go for it real quick. (My colleagues thought this was the best reason they have ever heard from a colleague to go on a vacation, because of a 100 year old man…). So last June the 25th they were welcoming me at The Venus Project.

When I arrived, there were already about 10 other people waiting next to the parked cars, we weren’t allowed to take a walk there because of the alligators. This one was next to my car…

 

 

That was the whole group so it felt like a private session, very cool! Inside a fascinating building, Jacques was already sitting on a couch waiting for us to join. And as you can see on the picture, this man is really old. His best quote of the day was: Once when I spoke with Einstein(!). At that moment you realize that he realy have seen and lived everything. After his lecture we got a tour at the land of the Research Center. There are different kind of buildings they built themselves with their hands, the buildings all based on the pilosophy. Next to this tour we came back at the place where we left Jacques (he doesn’t do the tours himself anymore, he broke his leg when he was 96 and learned to walk again at that age, but the tour is too much for him. Well I forgive him