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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Evidence Of Source

Oakville Grocery, California, USA

December 17, 2018



This essay, Evidence Of Source, is the sixth in the open second group of Experiences Of A Friend (click here for the complete first group of thirty five Experiences Of A Friend):
  1. Friend, Partner, And Ally
  2. Go To The Beach
  3. Proof Of Life
  4. Going Out Like A Supernova
  5. Relationships: They Start, They End
  6. Evidence Of Source
  7. On Knowing When To Be Ordinary
  8. Letting Be
  9. Transforming The Untransformable
  10. There's Always The Next Piece
  11. Plastic Chandelier II
  12. Yes You Really Are That Big
  13. A Way With Words
  14. The Quietest Mind
  15. Approaching Integrity
  16. Dancing With Life II
  17. Staying In Integrity
  18. Ordinary People Star, Extraordinary People Recreate Themselves
  19. Committed Existence
  20. When You're Being Like Werner, You're Not Being Like Werner
  21. "There's Life Happening Where You Are"
  22. At The Level Of Self-Expression
  23. Intergalactic Dude
  24. Wonderful With People
  25. The Piercing Essay
in that order.

It is also the ninth in an open group on Source: It is also the sequel to What Did You Do To Me?.

It was conceived at the same time as


He has a degree of certainty about him that's (in a word) uncanny. Secondarily, what he's certain about occurs in the domain of what he does. Primarily, what I'm speaking to here isn't that: it's what occurs in the domain of who he be's  - to be explicit, what I'm speaking to here occurs in the domain of who he is.

I'm pretty certain about most things in my life. I'm especially certain about those things I've chosen to take on and be responsible for. I tested the waters  (so to speak) before I took them on, and I test them again from time to time as I engage with them ongoingly. So now I'm pretty certain about them. Yet if you notice something I do, and you offer me a compliment, a part of the little  me will go "Oh! You noticed! Thank  you!". It would be like a validation for me. In other words, my own certainty about what I do, typically provides me with a 99% confirmation of what I've taken on. But there's another 1% that's not certain: it's only kinda sorta  certain. So if on top of that 99% certainty you notice what I do and you compliment me, that would validate me and make me 100% certain. I would thank you for the compliment, but not merely because you complimented me: I would thank you because by validating me, you made my 99% certainty a 100% certainty.

His being certain, on the other hand, doesn't require that. His certainty is 100%. It's always  100%. To be sure, for most of us skittish human beings, it's a rare quality - very rare. And it's not a certainty that comes from arrogance. It's not a certainty that's pretended, acted out, or faked. It's a certainty that comes from being certain.

He's not validated by compliments. Rather, he simply doesn't require them. Please don't misunderstand what I just said. I don't mean he doesn't accept compliments graciously. But watch: accepting a compliment and being validated by one, are totally different linguistic domains. When you offer me a compliment, I'm left validated by the compliment. But when I offer him a compliment, on the other hand, what I'm left with is that I complimented him  (he already knows!).

It is (as I've said) a quality unlike any other quality in any other human being I've ever known. And every time I'm around him, I'm once again reminded of exactly how unlike any other human being's quality it is. Looking for the title of this essay, I came up with various descriptors, all of which didn't fit or convey what I wanted to share accurately. So I came up with more, and then with more, and then with some more, looking for the one which fit best. The one I've settled on, Evidence Of Source, is the most fitting one I could muster. And if I come up with a better fitting one later, I'll retitle this essay (which, by the way, is one of the big advantages of working in an internet medium like this - over, say, writing a book: once a book is written, printed, and published, existing versions can no longer be changed).

Until then, this is what that quality is: it's evidence of source. It's not a re-creation  of source. It's not an aspiration  to be source. No, it's evidence of being  source. In other words, this is what being source looks like. And if I try to understand it when I'm experiencing it live, close up, face to face, larger than life, and twice as natural, I notice it's like trying to get my head around a good Zen koan: all that happens is it breaks my mind. So I'm left with just getting  it - which is actually how it naturally trains me. And in the process of being trained by the uncanny evidence of being source, I get it by simple osmosis (ie it's grokkable). Another way of saying that, is this: in the process of getting the experience of being source and how it's lived in reality, I naturally discover my own possibility of being source.

It's no accident, by the way, that people naturally discover their own possibility of being source, being around him. It's just one more thing he's certain about.



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