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

Breakfast With The Master VI III:

Forwarding The Fulfillment

San Francisco, California, USA

April 17, 2018
"What will I do when you die?" ... Laurence Platt asking    an essential question in Questions For A Friend XII 
This essay, Breakfast With The Master VI III: Forwarding The Fulfillment, is the companion piece to Plastic Chandelier.

It is also the third in the sixth trilogy Breakfast With The Master:
  1. Breakfast With The Master VI: Doo-Wop, Coffee, And Intention
  2. Breakfast With The Master VI II: Cherish These Days
  3. Breakfast With The Master VI III: Forwarding The Fulfillment
in that order. 		The first trilogy Breakfast With The Master is:
  1. Conversation With A Laser
  2. Shut Up And Do What You're Doing
  3. Secret Agent
in that order.
The second trilogy Breakfast With The Master is:
  1. Breakfast With The Master II: Future Health
  2. Breakfast With The Master II: Future Finances
  3. Breakfast With The Master II: Future Open
in that order. 		The third trilogy Breakfast With The Master is:
  1. Raw Power
  2. It Works Better As A Possibility
  3. Magic At Heart
in that order.
The fourth trilogy Breakfast With The Master is:
  1. Breakfast With The Master IV: Parental Care
  2. Breakfast With The Master IV: Taking The Guilt Out Of It
  3. Breakfast With The Master IV: Language As Music
in that order. 		The fifth trilogy Breakfast With The Master is:
  1. Whatever Works
  2. Yesterday's Transformation
  3. Billions And Billions Of Stars
in that order.
The seventh trilogy Breakfast With The Master is:
  1. We're Here
  2. Being A Being Coach
  3. You Already Got It
in that order. 		The eighth trilogy Breakfast With The Master is:
  1. Breakfast With The Master VIII: What People Crave
  2. Breakfast With The Master VIII II: Keep Talking
  3. Breakfast With The Master VIII III: Fearless In The Face Of Life
in that order.
The ninth trilogy Breakfast With The Master is:
  1. A Fountainhead Of Clarity And Power
  2. Conversation With A Laser II
  3. Being A Being Coach II
in that order. 		The tenth trilogy Breakfast With The Master is:
  1. Breakfast With The Master X: Living In A Story
  2. Breakfast With The Master X II: Don't Believe In The Buddha
  3. Breakfast With The Master X III: Broadening Horizons
in that order.
The sixth trilogy Breakfast With The Master is the prequel to When New Ideas Get Old.


He speaks carefully, deliberately, between eating, drawing a razor sharp line dividing being the work of transformation as a personality, and being this work as a context  ie as a space. Agreeing with what his exposition communicates, I'm 1,000% certain the full expression of the work of transformation is designed to show up in you and I being this space. Although my personality, on the other hand, simply isn't where the work shows up, it's an important piece (if you will) in the game in which transformation plays out. Like the piece ie the "token" I use to play the game of Monopoly  (the Scottie dog or the race car or the top hat), my personality is the piece I use to play the game of Life. My personality ie my piece gets me into the game. But it's my space  which recontextualizes (I love  that word) the game itself. In this recontextualization, I realize that what I thought  was my career isn't my career:  Life itself is my career - that is to say, playing the game of Life itself, is my life.

And what of sharing the work of transformation by having it show up in the space we are? As he speaks, I begin wondering what I would say exactly, if I was asked to articulate a concentrated distillation  (if you will) of the work of transformation. I mean, what exactly would I say it is, given that it seems as if there are so many  pieces which together contribute to the whole. Then, having gotten myself clear about what I would say it is, transformation would be apparent, given the space I am.

Over these past forty years, I've had plenty of occasions to consider this very same question over and over and over again and again and again. And now, here it is once more, showing up not in a synagogue or a church or a mosque, you know, those places which were supposedly designed with this sort of experience in mind, but instead it's right here:  over omelets, hash browns, wheat toast, and coffee in a restaurant with a jukebox spinning Doo-Wop. It's another opportunity in an ongoing series of hundreds  if not more, driven wholly and in part by the company I keep, in which I get clear that when I look newly, even at the same issues I've looked at countless times before, Conversations For Transformation are re-invigorated, freshened, and enlivened. It's the best safeguard I know, to stop direct experience lapsing into mere concept and belief. That said, I look for the single facet of transformation which could be said to be its axis, its fulcrum, its central tenet, its guy rope.

Sipping from Betty's bottomless coffee cup, my inquiry is simply this: is there one particular quality to which all other aspects, components, pieces, fragments, "Yeah, but  ..."s, "What if ...?"s, "How 'bout ...?"s etc all extrapolate back to, when considering what transformation makes possible, available, worthwhile ie must-have  - indeed, what it really is?  Asked another way, if you were attempting to describe transformation in a phrase of ten or less one-syllable words, what would you say?

"The possibility of being fulfilled" comes up (from him? from me? I don't recall) although it does violate the "one-syllable" spec (it's five words and ten syllables). Said another way, "The possibility of being fulfilled" is "The possibility of being who I am, as enough"  or "The possibility of who I am, being enough.". And what there is to do, is to forward the fulfillment. The possibility of being fulfilled, is a possibility I get from the work of transformation. But getting it authentically, actually shows up independent of the work of transformation and  of its source. Whatever I get, is mine - it's all mine!  If I want it to be a "special"  experience, it'll ensure I'll miss the actual  experience of being already  fulfilled. So: forwarding the fulfillment is  the work of transformation. And when I notice that, I notice it's aligned with its source.

He points out "... and you're already doing that  ..." (I'm already generating it the entire time) "... so there's nothing for you to do.". Now that  always gets me (and I've probably heard it before, a thousand times or more): sometimes the most powerful  action is doing nothing. But look: when this  guy refers to "doing nothing", he's not using it in the way people colloquially use "doing nothing". In the way people colloquially use "doing nothing", it means "being idle". In these Conversations For Transformation, what "doing nothing" means, is the same as what he means when he refers to "doing nothing", which is: "doing whatever it is you're doing, while you're doing it.". That's very Zen. It also just so happens to be what these Breakfasts With The Master invariably tease out. And I already know it's true. Really.


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