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
Family In Me
Capitola, California, USA
July 21, 2007
This essay,
Family In Me,
is the companion piece to
Family Ties.
It's a
definition (a
distinction
actually) I'm currently inquiring into all over again, re-scrutinizing
in a way and to a depth I've never been before.
Family.
What is family exactly? Said another way, what makes for
family?
There's the question's already always answer in which I'm
not interested. That's not to say I'm not interested in family per
se. I am. Whatever
family
is (and isn't), it's one of the most precious opportunities available
to human beings. Rather, what I'm not interested in is the question's
already always answer, in what would have once always popped out of my
mouth, undistinguished, in answer to the question "What makes for
family?". I've started the inquiry anew.
There's family like the family of man. Everyone's included.
Being born a human being of any race of any class of any creed anywhere
any time is it's only qualification.
There's family like the immediate, intimate family I'm born
into:
father,
mother,
brother, sister, uncles, aunts, cousins etc.
There's family like the family I establish: spouse, children,
grandchildren, in-laws etc.
There's family like a statement of generosity, the act, for
example, of including good friends in my "family". Let's
call this extended family.
As I probe and push deeper into this inquiry, what starts to emerge is
a stalwart notion, a sterling rethinking of what family
really is or could be. It's family in
transformation. It's definitive. It's decisive. Literally it's
family in me. Arguably that's prime. That's paramount.
It's the only one ... arguably.
I'm saying "arguably" not to imply it's
better to be family in transformation than
not to be. In the fundamental
Zen
sense it's impossible to become better
through transformation. That would be, as we sometimes like to say,
unclear on the concept. When transformation is confused with
improvement or with getting better, it's a recipe for
disempowerment, for disappointment, for nothing working, for becoming
buried deeper in the mire.
Family in transformation brings to the table decisiveness,
intentionality, responsibility, integrity, openness, and sharing.
Biology ie the simple matter of being born into a family,
doesn't carry those qualities. It's merely the prerequisite for
physical presence, the precursor to being here.
Something remarkable becomes possible when we bring transformation to
bear on the family we're born into. What I'm postulating is this: if
biology isn't there, we wouldn't be present at all. But even if biology
is there, are we really present without transformation? I mean,
really?
When I look at it this way I see the gift transformation brings to the
family I'm born into. That touches, moves, and inspires me! From that
inspiration a new platform, a new vantage point with a clearer vista
emerges. In a much broader sense, when I look, inspired, I see an
entirely new possibility of family as all of our stands for
transformation. This is family in transformation.
The only qualification for inclusion in family in
transformation is to be a stand for transformation. Family
in transformation isn't necessarily the family of man nor the
family I'm born into nor the family I establish nor extended family ...
although clearly and desirably it's quite possible it could be.