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

Hostile Environment

Exertec Health and Fitness Center, Napa, California, USA

January 22, 2011

This essay, Hostile Environment, is the companion piece to The Myth That Life Is ... Er ... Hard.

It was written at the same time as

Life. It's not fair. It's not easy. So you say.

But "It's not fair" and "It's not easy" are assessments. And assessments, no matter how cherished, no matter how widely held, aren't the truth. What's closer to the truth is Planet Earth didn't come with any guarantees things would be fair or easy here. So when "It's not fair" and "It's not easy" are said as judgements and / or complaints, well ... so what?!"

Hostile Environment:
Not Fair, Not Easy

Look: something - an asteroid? a meteor? - caused an extinction event for the dinosaurs. If you had an extinction event in your suburb, it would ruin your day too. It wasn't fair, especially after all the hard work Mom and Pop Tyrannosaurus Rex put into raising a family and carving out territory. It certainly didn't make things easy. Vesuvius didn't ask the denizens of Pompeii to approve its plan to annihilate them before it erupted. But it did so anyway. Not fair. Certainly not easy for the Pompeiians. Neither fair nor easy for those in the path of the Banda Aceh tsunami. Neither fair nor easy for those in the path of the Brisbane Australia floods.

From the time of the extinction of the dinosaurs to the more recent flooding of Brisbane, it's been obvious our domicile on Earth has always been (while we may not want to confront it) a hostile environment.

Since "It's not fair" and "It's not easy" are just assessments and not "the truth", and assessments aren't the source of any measure of empowerment, what I'd like to flesh out in this conversation is a powerful view of whatever's considered not fair, a powerful view of whatever's considered not easy.

A powerful view of whatever's considered not fair is "It's the way it is, and it isn't the way it isn't.". A powerful view of whatever's considered not easy is "It's the way it is, and it isn't the way it isn't.". The assessments "It's not fair" and "It's not easy" aren't powerful since they're aligned with opinions about the way things should be. Remember, Planet Earth didn't come with any guarantees things would be fair or easy here. "It's the way it is, and it isn't the way it isn't" is powerful since it's not aligned with opinions about the way things should be. "It's the way it is, and it isn't the way it isn't" is powerful since it's aligned with the physical universe.

The physical universe, the environment in which we live, isn't hostile or not fair or not easy when it's the way it is, and when it isn't the way it isn't. When the physical universe, when the environment in which we live, is the way it is, and isn't the way it isn't, then it's neither hostile nor not fair nor not easy: it's just the physical universe, it's just the environment in which we live.

That's reality. No opinions clouding the picture. In a word (in two words actually), it's just "what's so".

Wait! Isn't "It's the way it is, and it isn't the way it isn't" merely apathy? - especially when it's said sounding like Eeyore ever lamenting in The Hundred Acre Wood in his own distinctive accent. Isn't "It's the way it is, and it isn't the way it isn't" merely the uninvolved bleating of indifferent sheeple? Or depressed donkeys? No. And here's why.

The assessments "It's not fair" and "It's not easy" play as victims of what's so even if they're arguably good descriptions. They provide no foundation, no basis, no platform on which to stand and make a difference. All they do is rail against what's so. "It's the way it is, and it isn't the way it isn't" acknowledges what's so. Notice if your intention is to make a difference, it's fundamental to transformation (it's an axiom if you will) that you can't make a difference with anything until you first get it exactly the way it is and exactly the way it isn't. When you get it exactly the way it is and exactly the way it isn't, there's freedom of choice around what to do next. When you get it exactly the way it is and exactly the way it isn't, there's an an opening: a clearing, a context for new possibilities. That's when things start to shift.

Werner Erhard suggests building a strategy to resist a hostile environment binds you as much to the hostile environment as committing to it.

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