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




Complete And Delete

Napa Valley, California, USA

March 10, 2008



This essay, Complete And Delete, is the second in an octology on Completion: I am indebted to Richard Condon and to Ian Cumming who inspired this conversation.



Complete and delete.                              
Complete and delete.                              
Complete and delete.
 Scrolling Marquee Screensaver


My life turned out this way. My life isn't something that might have turned out different than the way this  turned out. This is my life. It's mine, all mine!  All the predicaments are my opportunities, all the challenges are my play, all the difficulties are my occasions to excel, all the hopeless times are my moments out of time to invent new possibilities.

When I get my life as the way this  turned out and not as any other way it would have, could  have, or should  have turned out, it is what it is  and it ain't what it ain't, it's perfect, it's complete, and I live coming from the possibility of enormous  freedom and creativity.

My life isn't the life I'll have, the life I'll get to  as soon as all this stuff  is handled. My life isn't the life I'll start living once I've actioned the agenda minutiae. My life isn't the life which will begin once all these things I must do  are done. My life isn't the life I'll live when the chores are complete. My life isn't the life on hold  waiting for all these errands to be run. This stuff (the agenda minutiae, all these things I must do, the chores, all these errands) is  my life.

I enter all the agenda minutiae in my Letts of London  diary on the date and time they're to be actioned. As soon as they're complete, I delete them. I note all these things I must do in my schedule. Once they're done, once they're complete, I delete them. I enter the chores in a daily list. When they're complete, I delete them. I enter all these errands in my diary also. As soon as I run them and they're complete, I delete them.

My life is always complete like a possibility  ... right ... now. The actions I've yet  to complete (the agenda minutiae, all these things I must do, the chores, all these errands) are incompletes I hold in a context of completion. In this way, even when they're incomplete, they're complete!  ie I have a context in which to hold them as complete: they're completely incomplete. Then, when I actually complete them, I delete them.

What's left after I delete them in the context of completion is nothing. What's left after I create completion is nothing. When I create nothing, that's the only real opportunity I have to be truly creative. Creating anything in my life not  coming from nothing isn't creating at all. It's simply changing, rearranging, altering, or amending what's already there.

I got my mantra  for handling all this stuff  in a context of completion from my friend's scrolling marquee  screensaver. It says ... Complete and delete. ... Complete and delete. ... Complete and delete.



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