Now I didn't notice that correlation when I started
writingthese essays
over twelve years ago, and nor did I notice it a year ago, and nor did
I notice it six months ago. I first noticed it a month ago after my
statedword
in the matter was
complete
ie after I'd
written
the
one thousandessays
I promised
Werner
I would
write,
and after they'd received the
one million
views
I promised him they would receive. And then what? It
certainly looked like this project, being
complete,
was over.
That said, what I'm noticing now is the obvious: it's not
over. It's going on. It's now
one hundred and four
essays
and
nearly three and a
half thousand views
beyond my promise ie beyond my measures defining the project's
completion.
If it were over, I wouldn't have
written
this - and you wouldn't be reading it, yes? I'm noticing it's a certain
momentum which is the
source
of my
creativity,
a momentum which in retrospect was always there - except earlier it was
out of sight in the
background.
Well, in that case you may ask "What was in the
foreground?". It was my
word
ie it was my promise which was in the foreground. And when my
word
ie when my promise
completed,
what I noticed was: it's that momentum which has
these essays
continue to come forth, even after my promise to bring them forth,
completed.
After this
website
received its
one millionth
view,
I removed all references to publishing
two new essays
twice a week and to announcing them on Sundays and Wednesdays at
midnight, from the
website's
Communication
Promise
as well as from my
e-mail
distribution list announcements - in other
words,
I took my promise out of it, given it was
completed.
And yet as I look at what's transpired since then, the plain fact is
nothing's really changed. There've still been
two new essays
twice a week which have been published and announced on Sundays and
Wednesdays at midnight - promise, or no promise.
I'm not (yet) sure what to make of this myself. Really I'm not. Before
the one millionth
view,
there were two new
conversations
a week which were published and announced on Sundays and Wednesdays at
midnight
on time
as promised. And since
the one millionth
view,
there've been two new
conversations
a week which were published and announced on Sundays and Wednesdays at
midnight ... but ... not as promised (therefore there's no
"at midnight
on time",
yes?). So now I'm inquiring
from within the question"What is my
conversation
when it's not a promise?" - more specifically, "What are
these
Conversations For
Transformation
when they're not generated inside a promise?".
Right now, I don't have any
answers.
Right now I'm
sitting
in the space
Werner
introduced me to over dinner recently: I'm allowing myself to
be directed by the
unanswered question.
And as I
sit
here, looking from this vantage point, what I notice is I'm not waiting
for
answers
to
show up
before continuing, and neither does the dearth of
answers
seem to stop anything. So where does this
conversation
and others (generated since their erstwhile
end-of-the-line signs, the
one thousandthessay
and the
one millionth
view,
came and went) come from? which is too say: what's the
source
of the momentum that's carrying them forward, now that the promise is
completed?
There appear to be two
answers
to this
question.
There's the obvious, interim
answer,
and there's the at-first-not-so-obviousanswer.
It's the latter which is more profound, yet it's the one which is also
more elusive. Interimly the momentum comes from
writingtwo new essays
a week for twelve years like a promise, like a
commitment.
And when the promise
completed
and the
commitment
was
fulfilled,
the
conversations
didn't stop because the momentum continued. It's kind of like
rolling a
rock
down a hill: when it gets to the bottom of the hill, it doesn't stop
there just because it's at the bottom of the hill - its momentum
assures it will continue rolling (you don't have to be a science
graduate
or understand
physics
or be able to derive the formula for momentum as defined in the
textbooks, to
get
this).
Now, the more profound
answer
is this: it's
Life
itself's
momentum throwing something forward, something irresistible, something
worthwhile, something je ne sais quoi, something which truly
was once my promise, my
commitment,
my prerogative, but which is no longer that anymore. It can't
be: my promise was
completed,
my
commitment
was
fulfilled.
This is a totally new place for me to
stand
ie it's
a new beginning,
no longer given by "my" promise or by "my"
commitment
- rather it's given by being in the momentum of
Life itself
as it continues to throw
these
conversations
forward ... and I notice I'm still
standing
here
writing
some of them down.
That just about covers my new role in it. But perhaps the
player
with an even bigger role than me in this, is
you.
Listen:
I don't really know what it means to have received
one million
views.
Yes it's a big number. But in actuality, what is it? What it is,
whichever way I slice it, is a lot of you: your
reading, your
time,
your
attention,
your
interest,
your
listening,
your care, your
love,
your
friendship,
your alignment, your support, your
partnership. While I'm not yet
clear
where
these Conversations
For Transformation
will go
next,
what I've always been
clear
about is: the space in which
these Conversations
For Transformationshow up,
is you - and there's a lot of you. It's a space which is
worthwhile enough and generous enough and gorgeous enough for me to
want to stick around a while longer and see what
conversationsLife itself's
momentum is going to throw forward
next
... and to be here to
write
some of them down.