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
Auberge du Soleil, Rutherford, California, USA
February 2, 2018
This essay,
Just
Show Up,
is the sequel to
Showing Up.
This
conversation
began
with what I would (in retrospect) eventually come to regard as one of
the pivotal events in
my life.
It qualifies for the descriptor "pivotal" because it was
a living, breathing encounter with
transformation as it's really lived in the world
- not just as a theoretical, intellectual explanation, concept, or
interpretation
of it (in today's vernacular, it was
a living, breathing encounter with
transformation on the court
- not
transformation
in the
stands).
In the very
moment
it
happened,
I knew (I
mean
I instantly knew) a
powerful
opportunity had discontiguously
presented
itself to me. But
the truth
be told, I didn't
get
its
full
profundity at the
time
(that would come much later). What I did
get
however, lived with me for many years, its impact growing ie its
possibility
expanding
inexorably
as if all by itself, and so subtly that most of the
time
I was unaware it was
happening.
Then, almost two
decades
ago (it was nearly eighteen and a half years after the
original
incident
occurred), the opportunity re-appeared vividly in
my life,
taking me by the hand, demanding I
write
it
down.
I did, documenting
what happened
in an
essay
titled
Showing Up.
Showing Up
is one of the shortest
essays
I've ever
written
(if not the shortest
essay
I've ever
written)
in this
Conversations For
Transformation internet series of essays.
Yet with all that
said,
its brevity is a disproportionate match for its
power
ie for what that
encounter
unleashed.
This is
what happened:
I was
talking
with
Werner
in the kitchen of
his San Francisco home,
the Franklin House,
about something I'd planned for a group of people. I was
sharing
all my
considerations
and all my
fears:
this might
happen,
that might
happen,
what if I can't do such and such, what would
happen
if ... na na na ... you
know,
the
whole
dang thing (I had it on automatic).
Werner
looked
at me and
said
three
words:
"Just
show up.".
I don't remember what I
said
in response. I do remember
being
(as it's
said
colloquially) blown away. By what? It was as if a
portal opened
wide
had suddenly,
magically
appeared in my fortress of solitude in which heretofore
only ice
walls
were
possible.
With those three
words
"Just
show up",
he
completely
recontextualized
(I
love
that
word)
all the frenzy, all the confusion, all the uncertainty, all the
"What the heck do I do
now?"
which occur in the domain of trying to figure it all out, and dropped
them squarely into the realm of
being
ie into the realm of
presence
- which is to
say
into the
possibility
of
being
ie the
possibility
of
presence.
As the author of
these Conversations
For Transformation,
with by
now
at least a modicum of
experience
in wrestling with this sort of distinction, I'm all too aware that
there's a pernicious
trap
in attempting to provide a
meaning
or an explanation for "the
possibility
of
being
ie the
possibility
of
presence"
for someone who's trying to figure it all out. The
trap
is that in attempting to provide a
meaning
and / or an explanation, the likelihood of any
real
being
and / or of any
real
presence
showing up,
is reduced to zero (dun't esk ... it's just that
way).
That's
why
I invite you instead to interact with this distinction ie to try it
on for size, and to
discover
it for yourself. Try on (by
asking
yourself) "What occurs differently for me when I'm trying to figure it
all out (in any situation), than when I'm just
showing up
(in any situation)?".
It's
easy
to
get
stuck trying to
come up
with the right
answer.
Rather, just
sit
with the
question
in your lap like a hot brick and instead
see
if you can
get
out of your own
way
long enough to allow many, many
possible
answers
to
come up.
A good
question
may indeed be one which
gets
the right
answer.
But a great
question
(as
Werner
may have
said)
is one which
gets
lots and lots and lots of
possible
answers.
A great
question
may also generate lots of "Yeah, but ..."s as well as many
more
answers
to
"How
about ...?"s and "What if ...?"s. Here's one of the lots and lots and
lots of
answers
which
came up
for me: when I'm trying to figure it all out, what's available to me is
the finite set of options I've already tried, whereas when I'm
just
showing up,
what's available to me is the infinite space of all
possibilities.
Wow!
This is what's great about this distinction: it's just
possible
that
showing up
(ie
"showing up"
the way
Werner
distinguishes it) is really all that
Life
requests of us. It's
showing up
not like merely entering physically into the situation
(for which, if I tell
the truth
about it, I can only barely take credit for). Rather it's
showing up
as
being
present
like a
possibility.
It's
showing up
as bringing
who I really am
to bear on the situation (for which, if I tell
the truth
about it, only I can take credit for).
That, in any situation or circumstance (with the underline, with the
emphasis, with the stress on the qualifier "any") is the
litmus test
for the
presence
of
authentic
transformation:
did
who we really
are
just
show up?
"OK we
got
it
Laurence"
you may
say,
"but what about all that circumstantial stuff that was
there for you to deal with? You
know,
there were all the
considerations,
there were all the
fears,
there was all the this might
happen,
there was all the that might
happen,
there was all the what if I can't do such and such, there was all the
what would
happen
if ... na na na ... you
know,
there was the
whole
dang thing you were dealing with which you
asked
Werner
about in the kitchen
originally.".
Well? What about it?
Showing up
(ie
"showing up"
the way
Werner
distinguishes it) doesn't change any of that. It doesn't
change any of my circumstances. It doesn't relieve me of their burden.
It doesn't void my responsibility for them. Neither does it negate my
ownership of them. And it certainly doesn't make them any
easier to
deal with. What it does do is it brings forward
who I really am,
which
directly
affects the impact my
being
has on
my life.
In addition,
showing up
gives me
creative
say
in my choice of
possibilities
for
being,
and therefore it
empowers
the way
I live
my life,
and
the way
I deal with any and all my circumstances.
Man! I'll make no bones about this: that inspires me. You
and I will be dealing with stuff forever ie we'll be dealing with the
whole
dang thing until we
die
(I'm sorry, there's really no
way
of avoiding its domination). What
showing up
(the way
Werner
distinguishes it) brings with it, is the
possibility
of dealing with it all
transformed.
And it's just
possible
that dealing with it all
transformed,
is really all that
Life
requests of us.
