Conversations For Transformation: Essays Inspired By The Ideas Of Werner Erhard

Conversations For Transformation

Essays By Laurence Platt

Inspired By The Ideas Of Werner Erhard

And More

A Place To Make Distinctions

Conn Valley, California, USA

December 6, 2018

"You don't have to go looking for love when it is where you come from." ...

"The truth believed is a lie." ...

"It's complete. Walk on." ... Laurence Platt, The Last Place You Look: Koans Of Conduct

I am indebted to Travis Tremayne who inspired this conversation.

It's not uncommon. When the subject of our campfire confabulations turns to transformation, we're triggered to give our opinions of what it is. That's also natural. The trouble with it though, is this: without the rigor of Werner's languaging ie without wielding language as the scalpel of experience, it's barely possible to accurately say what transformation is (or isn't). Moreover: without it, it's im-possible to experience being transformed. Without the rigor of Werner's languaging, at best I talk about transformation (which, when others get involved, means we debate what it is), and at worst, I befog the space in which real, living, thrilling transformation occurs.

Here's the thing: I assert it doesn't do us any good to debate what transformation is anyway. And it's important to get why: debating what transformation is, doesn't leave us being transformed. Said another way, debating what transformation is, isn't an access to transformation. Transformation isn't another empirical "is-ness" ie a subject to be debated. Since it's located inside language, the effective way to bring forth transformation, is to be it, and to speak its distinctions ie to come from it.

With all that said, I've taken a stand for ie I've committed to imposing the rigor of Werner's languaging on my own speaking. That doesn't afford me the better way of speaking transformation. Neither does it afford me the right way. And it certainly doesn't afford me "the truth" in speaking transformation.

<aside>

Listen: please don't ever relate to what I say about transformation, as if what I say is "the truth".

It may be. It may not be.

Hopefully it is.

But listening what I say about it as if it's "the truth", will obfuscate my speaking it entirely.

When it comes to speaking about transformation, I can only lie (as Werner may have said).

<un-aside>

What imposing the rigor of Werner's languaging on my own speaking does afford me, is a certain pragmatic access to transformation. You can test me on this. Try on what I say, for size. See if it results in a discovery for yourself. If it does, take it: it's yours (no fees levied). If it doesn't, discard it, and walk on (no questions asked).

Standing for the rigor of Werner's languaging in speaking transformation, isn't necessarily a universally shared stand. If you take it on, be prepared to take it on in the face of a world of already always non-agreement (watch: "non-agreement" isn't the same as "dis-agreement" - that's the subject for another conversation on another occasion). It's not just the rigor of Werner's languaging which is conspicuous by its absence in such a world: it's our automatic, mechanized "How can I use this to fix things?" ie "How can I use this to survive?" which comes into play, and which (if undistinguished) gets in our way of being transformed. Here's what I mean by that:

All new ideas, perspectives, notions, beliefs, religions, "-isms" etc which we take on, we take on in order to get something: some new way of succeeding, some new way of making things easier, some new way of winning, some new way of dominating, some new way of being right, some new way of avoiding being confused.

<aside>

Trying to avoid being confused when you're confused is a strategy doomed to fail from the get-go, yes? It's the classic case of the dog trying not to be a dog.

The way to manage confusion when you're confused, is to be confused.

You let confusion be, and it lets you be.

<un-aside>

To speak transformation, is to stand in a place to make distinctions, and to speak its distinctions. When you stand in a place to make distinctions, there's nothing to get - nothing, that is, except the freedom to stand in a place to make distinctions. As paradoxical as it sounds, nothing is as freeing as nothing. It's its own reward.

Transformation is most powerfully generated by those willing to stand in a place to make distinctions, and just be there ie and just be with it, and make its distinctions without trying to get anything out of it (isn't that the very definition of "counter-intuitive"?). It's in the willingness to stand in that place without trying to get anything out of it (or change it, or add to it, or take away from it), in which the miracle of being transformed can show up, along with the possibility of fully experiencing the true nature of what it really is to be a human being. Over and over and over. Explicit. Clear. Count-on-able.

Every morning when I wake up, I love it that I get to be ... my ... Self ... all over again.

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