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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Bring Your Tiredness With You

Wild Horse Valley Appellation, Napa Valley, California, USA

June 19, 2023


"The training begins when you register."
... 
"Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative and creation, there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now."
... William Hutchinson Murray, read out loud by  
"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free ..."
... Emma Lazarus, New Colossus aka the Statue of Liberty poem
This essay, Bring Your Tiredness With You, is the companion piece to Take Your Fear With You.

I am indebted to Mark Spirtos who inspired this conversation, and to Jack Rafferty and to Laurel Scheaf who contributed material.


"It's a very kind invitation" she said, slowly shaking her head, "but I can't come. I'm tired.".

I kept quiet, sensing she wasn't done replying. Then sure enough, she turned to face me, looked me in the eye, and added "I'm always  tired" (it sounded almost like a question). "That's OK" I said, "I am too. I'm always tired. Really I am. And I invite you to come anyway, and bring your tiredness with you.".

That's a stretch, I know. It's a new order of thinking for just about anyone, a vintage Erhard idea, and I could tell immediately it was a stretch for her too.

Secondarily, it's new because tiredness / being tired as we all know*  is a legitimate stop, a socially-accepted excuse. I'm tired, so I can't come. We get it. We accept it. But: I'm tired ... and  ... I'll come anyway? I'll (quote unquote) bring my tiredness with me?  That's a new order of tiredness / of being tired.

Primarily, it's new because "... bring your  tiredness with you" implies a certain ownership, a certain unconsidered-until-now  being responsible for tiredness that we don't ordinarily take on. But in the work of transformation, it's the being responsible that's new, not the being tired. Ordinarily I get tired from time to time. And I say it's just something that (quote unquote) "happens" to me. But extra-ordinarily I can be responsible for it. I can own it. I can include it.

When I consider the possibility of bringing my tiredness with me, it's as a new choice in-the-face-of before there was no choice. Before, it was "I'm tired, so I can't come" - a reasonable excuse. But look: here's where bringing your tiredness with you can fail as a possibility: it can fail when I attempt to lay on you (ie when I attempt to coerce you forcefully) to bring your tiredness with you, and come. Then there's no possibility, no choice, only a blunt-trauma coercion.

Like so many ideas from the work of transformation, if you don't take it on for yourself and instead it's forced on you, not only does that just plain not work, but the possibility of it ever working and having any value at all, is completely obfuscated. So my practice in presenting "... bring your tiredness with you" (or any other idea from the work of transformation, for that matter) is to present it as a choice, as an option, as a possibility, not as a blunt-trauma coercion.

In the end she reneged and came, bringing her tiredness with her, taking on my invitation like an experiment. I'm glad she came. We got the pleasure of her company, and she got to experience what choosing to bring her tiredness with her and coming anyway, is like ie she got another new possibility for her life.

The gateway to transformation isn't only via high energy. To be sure, the gateway to transformation includes any and all energy levels (how could it not?) including tiredness / being tired. It's a mistake ie it's unclear on the concept  to consider transformation to be the bailiwick of high energy only. To consider transformation to be the bailiwick of high energy only, is to overly-conceptualize it, and thus muddy the waters for what it makes possible. It includes it all.

* "... as we all know ...": phrase uttered time after time and to great effect by former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Sir Anthony Charles Lynton "Tony" Blair, KG

(KG: "The Most Noble Order of the Garter": the highest order of knighthood, founded by King Edward III in 1348 [sources: wikipedia, express.co.uk])

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