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

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Approximations

Claremont Way, Napa, and Riverfront Café, Petaluma
California, USA

June 14 and 15, 2022


"The logic system of the mind is 'Everything is the same as everything else ... except not always.'." ...

This essay, Approximations, is the sequel to

in that order.

As the writer of nearly one thousand seven hundred essays in this Conversations For Transformation internet series, I've frequently averred (especially when not doing so would have been self-serving) that the authentic milieu of transformation, is our speaking and listening in up-close in-the-flesh face-to-face conversation. That's quite ironic actually because then it's this very body of work that thus decries its own milieu, the written word, as not the milieu of transformation.

More than that, these days Werner's transformative programs, seminars, and workshops are delivering transformation powerfully online and in meticulously constructed papers for academia, papers which make the ontology of transformation freely available. Yet even by my own erstwhile measure, both the online and written milieus are devoid of up-close in-the-flesh face-to-face conversation, and they seem to work well without it - brilliantly, in fact. How do I reconcile this?

While milieus other than speaking and listening in up-close in-the-flesh face-to-face conversation work calling forth Self-expression as the coin of the realm, they aren't the equivalent of it. So it's a matter of distinguishing their relative workability, efficacy, and power, and being straight / telling the truth about their differences.

Approximations To Milieu

What's true is nearly all milieus, to one degree or another, call people to Self-expression (capital ess), a call to which all of us naturally rally. What's also true is they mostly devolve into self-expression (small ess) and so may not be as notable, even if they're talented, watchable, and entertaining. When the most notable form of Self-expression is present, particularly when it's authentic, essentially human, and in-the-moment, it requires thinking on one's feet (to coin a phrase) ie "making it up on the spot" without script, trying-on, rehearsal and re-rehearsal, recording and re-recording, dummy run, cue cards, or a conducted musical score to play along with.

Here's my personal list ie my differentiation of the varying degrees of efficacy of the milieus in which self-expression is the coin of the realm, presented in a natural order, a ranking if you will, culminating in the most authentic / efficacious milieu. If up-close in-the-flesh face-to-face conversation is indeed the most authentic / efficacious milieu for making Self-expression the coin of the realm, then the others are but approximations to this milieu. And we (or at least our minds), driven by what Werner distinguishes as a logic system that dictates "Everything is the same as everything else ... except not always") make them equivalent. They're not. If we're going to interchange them without rigor, then at least let's be straight / tell the truth about their differences.

APPROXIMATIONS TO MILIEU:

5)	the written word
4)	the recorded word (audio)
3)	the recorded word with image (video)
2)	video interaction (online)
in that order, are milieus which are approximations to but aren't equivalents of the milieu given by
1)	standing up, four feet in front of Werner in an in-person up-close in-the-flesh face-to-face conversation

Approximations To Self-Expression

There are scores of freedoms and qualities of life which transformation makes possible, including bold, brassy Self-expression which is likely to be on almost everyone's wish-list. Literally anyone can get up, open their mouths, and express themselves, starting with those who do so rotely ie off by heart, all the way up to those who create it from nothing in-the-moment which requires thinking clearly, attentively, empathetically, powerfully on one's feet, "making it up on the spot" as they go along.

Here's my personal list ie my differentiation of some of the roles people play which call for self-expression, the highest of which calls for authentic Self-expression and the rest of which, while maybe impressive and watchable, are merely heroic approximations to authentic Self-expression. And we (or at least our minds, driven by what Werner distinguishes as a logic system that dictates "Everything is the same as everything else ... except not always") make them equivalent. They're not. If we're going to interchange them without rigor, then at least let's be straight / tell the truth about their differences.

APPROXIMATIONS TO SELF-EXPRESSION (fleshed out fully in the Conversations For Transformation essay titled Performance Artists):

7)	movie star, recording artist (tie)
5)	stage actor, opera singer (tie)
3)	rock 'n roll concert star
2)	stand-up comedian
in that order, are forms of self-expression which are approximations to but aren't equivalents of the Self-expression of
1)	seminar leader, est trainer, Forum leader

"Everything Is The Same As Everything Else ... Except Not Always"

Our conversations are literally peppered with deploying approximations to the real thing. "Everything is the same as everything else ... except not always.". We say "transformation" colloquially as an approximation to change. They're not the same. We say "Werner Erhard re-packaged Zen" as an approximation to speaks transformation. They're not the same. We even say "enlightenment" as an approximation to transformation. They're not the same. "Everything is the same as everything else ... except not always" is as much an indictment of our tolerance of a certain lack of rigor in our languaging, as it's a demonstration of the logic system of the mind. "Everything is the same as everything else ... except not always" is always at work, always running us, always driving us by default.

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