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The Finish Line
The Conversations For Transformation project in the form I envisioned it twelve years ago, will be complete once all three of my original intentions are fulfilled. This is the current status of those three original intentions:
| 1) | One thousand Conversations For Transformation essays written: |
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This intention is fulfilled. In fact by the time all three intentions are fulfilled, I'll have written and published approximately one thousand one hundred Conversations For Transformation essays ie one hundred more essays than I originally intended. |
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| 2) | One thousand people enrolled in the Conversations For Transformation e-mail announcement distribution list: |
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This intention is fulfilled. I enroll new people in the Conversations For Transformation e-mail announcement distribution list whenever and only if they request it. It's my promise to immediately unenroll people from this list if they ask to be unenrolled - no questions asked. So the total number of people enrolled in this list is always fluid and fluctuating as people ask to be unenrolled, and new people request to be enrolled. Over the last five years, from a low of approximately one thousand people to a high of approximately two thousand people worldwide receiving my e-mail announcements twice a week, this list has now stabilized at approximately one thousand five hundred people. I expect this to be the final total when all three intentions are fulfilled. |
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| 3) | One million views received by the Conversations For Transformation website: |
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This intention is not yet fulfilled. At the time of writing, the Conversations For Transformation website has received nine hundred and seventy four thousand, seven hundred and thirteen views. I envision twenty five thousand, two hundred and eighty seven more views will fulfill this intention which I project will be realized sometime in December of 2015. When the one millionth view has been received, the Conversations For Transformation project, having fulfilled its three stated intentions, will be complete. When it's complete, I'll no longer be keeping my promise to write two new essays a week. |
What's Next?
What's next? The truth is I don't know. It's a pure, clean "I don't know". One thing's for sure, though (and this you can bet on ie you can put it in the bank): I'll find out soon enough. And as soon as I do, I'll let you know. Until then, here's what I do know:
When the Conversations For Transformation website receives its one millionth view and I'm no longer keeping my promise to write two new Conversations For Transformation essays every week, I may yet write new essays whenever I get the urge or whenever inspiration calls. And if and when I do, I'll let you know they're posted via e-mail announcement as usual. It's only my promise to write "two new essays every week" which I'll no longer be keeping.
What I'll continue doing is alerting you immediately via e-mail as soon as new videos of Werner become available. I'll also alert you immediately as soon as new papers authored by Werner become available. In addition, if we get any really great photographs of Werner as well as quotes of his which simply rock my world (and they all do), I'll continue sharing them with you as I've been doing until now. These are ongoing promises to continue making Werner personally available.
The twelve years of writing two new Conversations For Transformation a week, not to mention setting my entire life up to support me writing two new Conversations For Transformation a week, week after week after month after month after year after year after year, have stretched me and purified me and focused me. This experience has been intense. It's been a cleansing, an ordeal by fire if you will. What I mean by "ordeal by fire" is during this process, almost all of me which wasn't authentic, was burned off like a snowflake in a furnace. I say "almost all" because there's always more inauthenticity, yes?
It's an almost 1,000% certainty that this experience of having undergone the ordeal by fire, will shape whatever's next.
Ongoing Commitment And Integrity
Although crossing this finish line ie receiving the one millionth website view, will mark a change in how often you hear from me by e-mail and how often I post new essays to the internet, my underlying commitment won't change. My commitment to make Werner's work available worldwide is ongoing and unending (I can't imagine doing anything else more worthwhile than this as my life's work - it's the only game in town).
This means the imminent completion of the two essays every week form of the Conversations For Transformation project, is simply the completion of one particular expression of one particular manifestation of this commitment.
Each marathon has its finish line. Each painting has its finish point. When a thing is finished, it's finished. The integrity of the finished two essays a week form of the Conversations For Transformation project, will be evidenced by the fact that when it finishes, it will be be finished based on what I originally said would measure its completion. That's when it will end. And its ending will allow something new ie something not now known, to happen.
I for one am really jazzed and excited to learn exactly what the "something new" ie the "something not now known" will be.
Content Comes And Content Goes But Context Is Forever
As this particular form of this particular iteration of making Werner available in the world comes to its inexorable conclusion, what's becoming apparent to me is the new beginning which is about to reveal itself. Make no error: the fulfillment of my third intention ie the one millionth website view, will be a big event. But here's the thing: the ending of my promise to write two new essays a week won't be an ending "because" of anything. Rather it will be an ending as the fulfillment of a stated intention ie it will be an ending as the completion of an envisioned design.
Perhaps for the first time in my life, I've gotten to see and fully appreciate and be clear about the difference between an ending "because of" some circumstance or "because of" some condition or "because of" some reason or "because of" some excuse or "because of" some mistake or "because of" some scarcity or shortage ... and fulfillment / completion. It'll soon be time to wrap up the current form of the Conversations For Transformation project - but not because of anything. No, it'll soon be time to wrap it up when it's complete.
Listen: when a person, entity, or thing is complete, it makes an even bigger context available. The ending of this current form makes a new opening available, a new beginning available, a new never before possible beginning available.
This completing something, this generating a bigger context, this making possible something which was never possible before, this new beginning, is entirely consistent with who Werner is. It's a context which is forever.
Acknowledgements
As an expression of our friendship and as an expression of our partnership, I want to acknowledge each and every one of you who listens these essays and responds to them as they're posted - sometimes immediately, sometimes days later, sometimes months later, by telephone, by text message, by e-mail, and in person, sharing your thoughts and impressions and suggestions.
It's worth noting that after one thousand one hundred essays have been posted twice every week for twelve years, there've been literally thousands of responses ... and only one hostile response. Just one token hostile response. To one thousand one hundred essays. Over twelve years. Among thousands of responses. That's remarkable. People get Werner.
Also as an expression of our friendship and as an expression of our partnership, I want to acknowledge that it was directly because of your responses, feedback, and constructive criticism that I discovered for myself how to listen for Conversations For Transformation through your fresh listening rather than only through my own already always listening. Through you I've become empowered to access and discover the way to recreate something whose nature can only be fully appreciated in the context of a generous conversation among committed friends.
I also want you to know that I know most of you listen these essays without responding at all. I know this because the website's view counter increments waaay more than the total number of responses I receive (each announcement of each new essay typically elicits anywhere from seven hundred to one thousand two hundred new website views). To you I'm especially grateful. I call you the silent group. You listen ... and you listen ... and you don't say anything.
Even though this means there isn't an opportunity for you and I to interact personally and directly beyond our connection as reader / listener and writer / speaker, I always know you're there, I always know you're listening, and I always get your support, and I appreciate you so much.
What I Want To Leave You With
There've never been any encoded covert agendas behind these Conversations For Transformation. So there are no shocking secrets to tell or Earth-shattering surprises to reveal or admissions to make or withholds to 'fess up to or titillating titbits to dish, as I close in on this marathon's finish line. Conversations For Transformation have always been WYSIWYG ie What You See Is What You Get. There are no hidden meanings.
