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
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Boyne City, October 2024 II:

But That's Not What Transformation Is!

The Tunnel Of Trees, Harbor Springs, Michigan, USA

October 10, 2024


"I had this transformational* experience. I had a transformation. Whoever I had been up until that point, I no longer was."
... 
sharing his extraordinary experience of transformation on the Golden Gate Bridge in March 1971, in an interview by Robyn Symon - 2006
This essay, Boyne City, October 2024 II: But That's Not What Transformation Is!, is the companion piece to Never Miss An Opportunity To Distinguish Something.

It is also the sixteenth in an open group on Transformation:
  1. Transformation
  2. Nelson Mandela And Transformation
  3. The Way Of Transformation
  4. Transformation: The Life And Legacy Of Werner Erhard
  5. Moment Of Truth
  6. Transformation II
  7. No Line
  8. Transformation Is Timeless
  9. Transforming Life Itself: A Completely Started Inquiry
  10. Transformation Is Accountability Plus Committed Speaking
  11. Not One Size Fits All
  12. Transforming Disciplines
  13. What It Also Comes Down To
  14. Transforming The Untransformable
  15. Who You Might Be Really
  16. Boyne City, October 2024 II: But That's Not What Transformation Is!
so far, in that order.

It it also the second in a trilogy written during a visit with my son Joshua Nelson Platt in Boyne City, October 2024:

"But that's not what transformation is!" she protested. She was indignant. That was my first take on where she was coming from. And the more I listened her, the more I got it was an expression of her loyalty / taking a stand for accuracy. That much was obvious. My question however, was "Who's  accuracy?".

To Werner's credit (and with credit to his intention), deployment of the word "transformation" has become a worldwide phenomenon. And yes it's likely true that Werner's usage of it has been usurped many times over. Nonetheless all the credit for the new wide-spread deployment of the word go to him and him alone, even if its latter-day colloquial usages don't fully match the way he deploys it or what he implied by it when he first burst forth onto the world stage.

In the colloquial usage of the verb "transform", the word has come to mean all of: to make different, to alter, to vary, to convert, to turn into, to modify, to switch, to adapt, to adjust, to evolve etc etc. In essence, those usages of the verb "transform" all boil down to nothing more (and nothing less) than "to change". Now there's nothing wrong with assigning "change" as one (if not the  one) of the many implied meanings of "transform". It's just not the only meaning of "transform". It's certainly neither the meaning nor the sense Werner assigns to it. Moreover the sense he assigns to it is arguably novelly his.

"Transformation" the way Werner deploys it, does not refer to change. Nor does it equate to enlightenment. It equates to a shift in our experience of who we really are. A transformed individual is not a changed individual. Rather, a transformed individual no longer experiences herself / himself in the way she / he once did. The totality of their experience of who they really are, has shifted ie transformed. Who they had been up until that point, they no longer are.

That's the transformative*  usage of "transformation". She referred (with a certain disdain) to how the usage of "transformation" has been hijacked. To a degree, I agree with her. When you're watching TV or surfing the internet, you won't have to wait very long before you're served up such misnomers as "transform your body" (lose weight), "transform your life" (take an ocean cruise), "transform your home" (buy some new furniture), "transform your floors" (see "transform your home"), "transform your investments" (get new financial advice), "transform your education" (go to night school), "transform health care" (political insinuations), "transform your face" (affordable cosmetic surgery), "transform the neighborhood" (pick up after your dog), "transform photographs" (Photoshop) etc etc. If you're present to the transformative usage of "transformation", the rest are finger-nails-on-the-chalkboard  naïvetés.

Werner however, when referring to his transformation, doesn't claim (or even imply)  that his usage of the word "transformation" is the only accurate one. Indeed, in sharing his transformation he uses open, generalized language, like "... 'this  transformational experience' ...", "... 'a  transformation' ...", the idea of course being to draw our attention to the experience  of transformation (however it's articulated) and not to get caught up in a well-intentioned yet childish spat about the word / words we use to refer to it. And even with that clearly stated, there's still no short-cut for accuracy (that's an integrity-thing).

"Look: Werner didn't invent the word 'transformation'" I said gently, "It's been around longer than he's been famous. He just deploys it in a very specific sense, and to great, powerful effect. 'Transform your floors' is (I agree) not what he had in mind. That particular usage has been hijacked. Yet it speaks to Werner's remarkable, extraordinary worldwide reach that his sharing has propelled the word 'transformation' into such far-reaching international usage.".

She'd calmed down a bit by then. To do that, she had to re-look and make room for / consider other possible explanations for the hard and fixed meaning she had assigned to the word "transformation" - even if the one she'd assigned was closely aligned with Werner's, and hence with her unwavering loyalty.

To look at and then give up any already-meaning you've assigned to / deeply invested in something, is really the act of a big  person, one I respect - a lot.

* Transformational or transformative?

transformational: pertaining to  transformation

transformative: causing  transformation

Citation: wikidiff

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