Werner's
brilliant musing
"Suppose you had no past
..." is a powerful "What if ...?" that brings something
extraordinary into view. Protests I've heard to this, include "But
Laurence, why bother? It's impossible to have no past. We
all have a past.". True, we all have a past, each and
every one of us. So look: this
idea of not having a
past?
It's intended to be provocative. And so, suitably provoked, you may
also wonder if the possibility of
not having a past
belies and / or negates all valuables we carry with us from the past
(education, experience, discrimination, learning, figuring-it-all-out
etc)? Doesn't all of that count for something? Isn't all of that
important?
Look: the arena for this, is a conversation for transformation ie a
conversation which
creates
a context rather than merely debates points of view. There's a
formidable coaching to be gotten from
"Suppose you had no past
..." which doesn't belie, negate, discount, or discredit what we carry
from the past. Rather it honors it all as the past. To take on
the possibility of
having no past
as a position to disbelieve or believe, to disagree with or agree with,
is to miss it entirely.
"Suppose you had no past"
evokes how we may experience
who we really aretoday if
who we are
today wasn't given by the past. In making this not easy supposition,
Werner spotlights how we typically live our lives: unexamined,
given by our past. But if we
had no past
(just
suppose)
then how would we experience
who we aretoday? ie what would it be like? Just stand and look. Let
it in. It sounds simple. But it's not easy - at least not at first. Yet
if you stay with it, it gives
who you really are.
It's pure,
vintage Erhard.
Engaging in that inquiry as I mapped this essay, I wondered why it's so
untenable to look at who we would be today if we
had no past.
No, much more than that: it's I wondered why it's so untenable to look
at
who we really are
today, without the past getting in the way. Maybe, just maybe, it's an
untenable inquiry because we're so consumed by the
significance
we inherited from the past, that we mistake it for
who we really are,
to the point where it's not possible to consider
who we really are,
without it. So what keeps us stuck in not knowing
who we really are,
isn't the past. Rather it's the
significance
we inherited from the past, which keeps us stuck.
This then, is worthwhile: inquiring into the past to notice we've
inherited layers upon layers of
significance.
What's not obvious is who or what determined what exactly is
significant,
and what isn't ie what's not obvious is who or what the qualification
for
significance
was. I'd like to suggest
significance
is decided not by you nor by me, but by what the culture
dictates - in other words, from what family determines, from what the
group determines, from what religion determines, from what politics
determines. What becomes
significant
for us I say, is a matter of what environment we grew up in, and most
of it wasn't ever
created
by us.
Significance
is simply inherited, and it's rarely if ever examined. We just take
it on as if for granted, out of a sense of cultural identity,
group-belonging, obligation, and maybe blind loyalty.
That's what, for the most part, gets in our way of recognizing for
ourselves
who we really are.
We can't see
who we really are
today because our experience of it is consumed by inherited
significance
from the past. Given the past, it seems as if there's no possible way
we could see
who we really
are.
That could be bad news ...
... if not were not for the good news. The good news is the holder
today of the
significance
of whatever's
significant
to us, is you and I. We forget (or pretend not to know)
it's we who inherited
significance
in the first place. What's
significant,
consumes us. By taking responsibility for inheriting what's
significant
in the first place, I reclaim my power - because then I have
say so
over what's
significant.
Then I can choose whether or not to give up being consumed by it. If
I'm not consumed by it, then what could show up like a possibility, is
the experience of
who I really am
ie of
who we really are.
Now that would be a very interesting place to
be in.
