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
Halftime
Rutherford Appellation,
Napa Valley,
California, USA
February 29, 2012
"It's halftime in America. And our second half is about to begin."
... Clint Eastwood, Chrysler commercial, Superbowl 2012 halftime
Sometime around now (it may actually have been before, during, or after
writing this
Halftime
writing this seven hundredth essay in the
Conversations For
Transformationinternet
series, but nonetheless sometime around NOW), it's halftime in
my life
- I'll be sixty two this year.
I'm looking forward to the second half when halftime ends, to be sure,
when the game will continue. But what I'm really looking forward to
when halftime ends is the game going into over‑time, then
into extra time, then being rescheduled as a
rematch ... which also goes into overtime, then
into extra time ... which then ends the same way ... ad
infinitum. In other words, if I have it my way it will never end. My
epitaph could say "What!? This wasn't supposed to happen!?
...".
Actually, it will never end. But it will surely exceed my
time here. So I wonder how long my spoken
words
will endure? How long will the difference they've made, endure? How
long will
transformationspoken like a possibility endure?
I really don't know. That's my answer. I really don't know how long
they'll endure. Honest! But here's the thing: even though I don't know
how long my spoken
words
will endure, even though I don't know how long the difference they've
made will endure, even though I don't know how long
transformation
spoken like a possibility will endure, I speak that they last
forever.
Who I'm being,
who I am
as
language,
who I am
as my
word
is they last forever. I am that they last well into the second half
after halftime, that they last through overtime, that they last through
extra time, that they last through all the scheduled rematches. And
here's what I want you to get about their enduring: their enduring is a
function of a way of being. Although enduring is associated with
a calendar or a clock measurement, although enduring is associated with
how long something lasts, that's not it. Or at best, that's
temporal. It's not a powerful yardstick for determining enduring
speaking. Enduring speaking is a function of a way of being.
Werner
Erhard's
speaking is enduring. I don't have to wait another sixty two years
before I vote on whether his speaking is enduring. It's in the moment
of listening and recreating his speaking when I experience his
enduring. It's his way of being in speaking which is
enduring. It's his way of being which gives his speaking enduring. To
wait and see if it lasts another sixty two years before getting it, is
just
the same old same
old
way of hearing without recreating, just
business as usual.
Waiting and seeing whether it will last or not only procrastinates
recreating its enduring value now.
It's halftime in this great game we're playing. It's halftime in this
grand arena in which we're playing. I'm eager for the
second half to begin to see how this game turns out. But watch: this
game has already turned out. This game was already won
even before it started. It wasn't already won because the other guys
will lose. It's already won simply because we're playing. This
is a game that
works
for everyone with no one and nothing left out.
That's what's coming
next
after halftime. Stay tuned. Don't touch that dial.