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




Friend Of The Planet

Beringer Vineyards, Calistoga, California, USA

December 20, 2006



"Earth's the right place for love: I don't know where it's likely to go better."  ... Robert Lee Frost transcribed by  
This essay, Friend Of The Planet, is the companion piece to
  1. Stranger Out Of Time
  2. World Traveler: A Straight Love Song
  3. Perfect Medium
in that order.

It is also a component of the supergroup Friend: It is also the prequel to Friend Of The Physical Universe: Manifesto II.




I'm glad I came. I like it here. I can't think of a better planet to live life on. So I'm taking off my hat and overcoat. I'll stay a while. When my time here is done I'll go somewhere else. There are so many places in the universe to visit. It'll take a while but I've got eternity. I've got all the time in the world. Actually I've got all the time in all the worlds.

There are so many things I'd like to do while I'm here. I'd like to visit the island nations. I've heard the snorkeling is pristine, the coral reefs breathtaking. That's the thing about this place: the beauty - if you have an eye open to it - is inspired. Other places I've traveled through across the universe are harsh, dry, severe, cold, or hostile. Whoever set the coral reefs in place here clearly made a statement saying: "I love you with everything I got. When I made these reefs I knew you would find them some day. They're my calling card to you. Experience my love as you swim in wonder around them.".

I also want to visit the rain forests while I'm here. From what I saw on the way here, they're incredible. They're beautiful to behold, but more than that, they're the lungs of the planet. I want them to thrive and to grow. They'll provide Earth with fresh air forever, allowing all other life forms to thrive too. I'll make it a priority of mine to speak for these rain forests, to give them the respect they deserve, to protect them and to allow them, in turn, to protect this planet.

There's a myriad species of plants and animals here, and there's nothing like this variety anywhere else in the universe. It's interesting to me how one place can have such a rich bounty of life. I haven't yet figured out why some plants and animals are disappearing. That doesn't seem right. There's more than enough support systems for everything here to thrive.

But the most awesome life form on this planet is its custodians: beings called human. Yet of all the things about this planet, its custodians are also the most curious to me, the most enigmatic. As a group, they haven't worked out or aligned on what their legacy for the future of this planet will be. They've been here for quite a few thousand years already and they still haven't come up with a plan.

And then there's art and literature and music. Of all the things I've seen here, art and literature and music tell me how alive the creative spirit is on this planet. It created human beings to live here and to manage this place then imbued in them the ability to create for themselves as well. I've never seen art or literature or heard music anywhere else in the universe. Remarkably, of all the places they could be found, they're here and nowhere else.

Who I'm being in the matter of my time here is the promise the human inhabitants of this planet all experience transformation, every single one of the six or seven billion of them so that more sooner than later they all get to be  that the future success of this planet is possible with transformation. Their future legacy and a viable sustainable expansion of beauty and plenty of this planet comes forth in the transformation of all its custodians, so they'll live life as who they really are into the possibilities they create to be. When they live that way, they'll honor themselves as miracles of life. When they really live that way, they'll honor each other  as miracles of life. And when they live that way, they'll honor this planet as the miracle of life it really is. I've been told that's an impossible promise for transformation. I say yes it's possible, even if its fruition date exceeds my time on Earth.

Now I've been here a while, long enough to have started something. It's time to move on. Where to go from here? What to do next? I don't know ... I'll think of something.



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