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

Essays - Fifteen Years Later:

Essence

Napa Valley, California, USA

August 17, 2018
"If you keep saying it the way it really is, eventually your word is law in the universe."  ... 
This essay, Essays - Fifteen Years Later: Essence, is the fifteenth annual State Of The Union  celebration of Conversations For Transformation:
  1. Essays - One Year Later: Critical Mass
  2. Essays - Two Years Later: Glass Walled Studio
  3. Essays - Three Years Later: Internet Presence
  4. Essays - Four Years Later: Side By Side
  5. Essays - Five Years Later: Arm In Arm
  6. Essays - Six Years Later: A Very Good Year
  7. Essays - Seven Years Later: By My Self
  8. Essays - Eight Years Later: Riding The Open Range
  9. Essays - Nine Years Later: Recreation
  10. Essays - Ten Years Later: Decade
  11. Essays - Eleven Years Later: Unimaginable
  12. Essays - Twelve Years Later: A New Beginning
  13. Essays - Thirteen Years Later: A Certain Space
  14. Essays - Fourteen Years Later: Lenses Of Creativity
  15. Essays - Fifteen Years Later: Essence
  16. Essays - Sixteen Years Later: It's All In The Mouth
  17. Essays - Seventeen Years Later
  18. Essays - Eighteen Years Later: The Heart Of The Matter
  19. Essays - Nineteen Years Later: On Being Used By Something Bigger Than Myself
  20. Essays - Twenty Years Later: Connected With Werner
in that order.


In the olden days of yore ie in my younger years ie in my transformationally less facile  (you get the idea) years, I may have said that writing these Conversations For Transformation (which is a euphemism for "making Werner available in the world") fulfilled my life. Indeed, there's a lot of truth in that. To that end, I planned, set up, engineered, and managed my life around being prepared, supported, and especially free, to write. But what I've gotten of late ie what I've realized recently, is it never was the source of the fulfillment. It wasn't that writing Conversations For Transformation fulfilled my life. It was that my life fulfilled my life. And writing Conversations For Transformation, was merely the expression (and evidence) of that. That's the essence of it. Now, fifteen years has gone by in one thrilling flash. What's new now?

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Essays
During this year, this website was optimized for mobile (it's an ongoing process). In the coming year, I'll narrow the gap toward posting the one thousand five hundredth essay (currently there are one thousand three hundred and eighty complete essays posted online). At the same time, I'll also narrow the gap toward the website receiving its one and a half millionth view (currently it's received one million three hundred and thirty one thousand, eight hundred and eighty views). Both these milestones will be passed in a bit more than one year from now ie in October 2019. Currently each new essay attracts about one thousand views, a total of about ten thousand website views a month. Also currently, X tweets earn about ten thousand impressions every month. An estimated one thousand five hundred people worldwide receive Conversations For Transformation announcements by e-mail (mostly distributed on Sundays and Wednesdays at midnight PDT). X and e-mail are the only social media platforms deployed for Conversations For Transformation announcements.

For as long as I've done this, there's a question that's never been far away, and it's often asked. That question is "Why do you do this?" (I'd be surprised if it wasn't asked: it's to be expected around any expressions of the work of transformation). And the only truthful and / or worthwhile answer lands either like a cross-court slam-dunk for some, or it infuriates those who aren't ready for a Zen answer. The answer is "I do this because this is what I do", to which an oft elicited response is "So you do this because it makes a contribution.". No, I do this because this is what I do (if it makes a contribution, OK great). Another oft elicited response is "So you do this because it enrolls people.". No, I do this because this is what I do (if it enrolls people, OK great). You've got to discover for yourself how to get all the significance out of it, if you're going to transform anything in life. In fact it's likely we can regard all of humanity's malaises, from the mundane to the urgent global, as a function of how much significance we place on our actions, as distinct from us simply taking action.

Speaking as a friend (not in any official  capacity) I assert that there are two essential thrusts to the work of transformation (yes I'm saying any component of the work of transformation, fits into one of these two categories). The first is arguably the most important, yet it's the one on which you spend relatively little time. The second is merely the outcome of the first ie it's its corollary  if you will, yet it's the one on which you'll spend the rest of your life. So: what are they? The first is experiencing that out-of-time  contextual shift, after which significance is known, arguably for the first time, for what it is: arbitrarily (if not contagiously)  generated by us - so we can just as easily set it aside (it's not  an essential). The second is living into a future of your own choosing and creation, having assigned all significance to the slag heap of history. The first thrust then, is the event "transformation". And the second one (all the rest) ie everything that follows, is living life transformed. Giving them together ie making both available, is the work of transformation. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Now, with all that laid bare as a platform on which to celebrate, I'm really thrilled you're here (and if you're listening this, you're here). I'd like to think that what's available here, has been available since the dawn of time. Yet that may be naïve thinking: the essence of transformation (disregarding any skepticism which goeswith considering this) may have only made its first, authentic, getable, shareable appearance on our planet, in March of 1971. Transformation is a people  possibility, yes? And we've been around a lot  longer than March 1971, yes? So the idea that transformation as an essence, first became available in March of 1971, sounds naïve at worst, preposterous at best. So what?!  It's here now like a possibility, the possibility that life by itself, in itself, and of itself is enough. That's a gamechanger. No, not a  gamechanger: the  gamechanger (I didn't have to say that: you already knew it). I'm a stand for contributing this: when, in moments of human self-doubt, you question "Is this really all there is? Can it really be so simple?". "Yes. Yes it can. Yes it is.".
Werner Erhard's presence throughout these essays is not only obvious: it's legendary (in the true sense of the word "legendary"). I'd like to speak to this so it's up front, clearly out in the open, and completely overt. There are three distinctions to note here: "who I am as a writer" is the first distinction, "who I am as a friend of Werner Erhard" (I'm one of many, many thousands - trust me) is the second, and "who I am as a friend of Werner Erhard, as a writer" is the third. These essays are a product of ie they're sourced by  that third distinction, inspired by the second, and in this context, the first is actually almost totally irrelevant. I'd like you to consider the possibility that transformation shows up in your life, in the space of your relationship with Werner as its essence, whatever you consider that relationship may be.

Thank You for listening me these fifteen years twice a week. Thank You. Really! Please watch this space. This is a work in progress. That means there's more to come.

Thank You for Your Relationship with Werner.

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