I am indebted to Mark Spirtos who inspired this conversation.
I was
speaking
with a fellow, a
graduate
of
Werner's work
who told me he had gotten a lot out of his
participation,
yet once he stopped
participating,
any value he gained had subsequently "faded away". He said "faded away"
like a criticism, like an invalidation, like the value he had
gained was supposed to somehow endure permanently by itself like a
non-fading indelible dye. He said "faded away" like
Werner's work
was not what
Werner
claims it is. He didn't say it like he was taking responsibility for
his value fading, nor as if he was inquiring into
why
it faded for him. I suggested that his
participation
in
Werner's workworked
(which is to say he got value out of
participating)
because he
created
himSelf
during his
participation,
and that subsequently he stopped
creating
himSelf,
simply forgettingcreating
himSelf
is the
source
of the value in his
life.
Create
it: there's value. Stop
creating
it: it "fades away".
That didn't go down well with him. He wasn't willing to look at his
role in the value in his
life
fading away.
To his credit, he contacted me again some months later and rebroached
the subject. One of the things he asked me was whether it was expected
that he and all the other
graduates
would "become like
Werner".
I could tell underneath it all, he admired
Werner.
I could also tell he confused
"creating
himSelf"
with "becoming like
Werner",
blurring the line between the two.
Werner's
a
Self-made
guy,
about whom there's a lot to
love
and about whose
work
there's a lot to
love
and from which there's a lot to gain.
But the idea of
Werner's work
setting out to make people like
Werner
is inaccurate, unfortunate, and misleading. It renders getting any real
value out of
participating
with him, almost impossible. The truth is
who Werner is
in the entire exercise of your own
transformation,
is almost incidental.
That said, it's hard not to get
who Werner is
when
participating
with him, simply from the
demonstration
he is. Yet as
extraordinary
as that is, it's actually not where the real value occurs. The real
value doesn't occur over there where he is. The real value
occurs where you are. To get the value from
participating
in
Werner's work
is to get
who you really are
and the hidden or suppressed or unrealized possibilities for your
life.
That's the primary outcome. To get
who Werner is,
while arguably useful, is only of secondary
interest.
More sooner than later once you've been introduced to
transformation
(which is to say more sooner than later once you've come within
earshot of the
conversation for
transformation),
it's natural to ask the question "Given this new
context
of
transformation
for my
life,
what should I do (indeed, how should I be)newly
in the situations in which I find myself now?".
Listen:
you won't get anything
powerful
for this question by asking the circuitous "What would
Werner
do?". While that may be a tempting question to ask, it's really just
dodging the issue ie it's really just evading being responsible.
Rather, the question to ask in these instances is the
direct,
pointed "What would I do?" - which is to say "What would
my
authenticSelf
do?".
Being in touch with my
authenticSelf
(which is to say simply "being my
authenticSelf"
- or even terser, "being
authentic")
is one of the
graduate
experiences available in
participating
with
Werner.
Being my
authenticSelf
and inquiring into being my
authenticSelf,
has value. Being like
Werner,
even as an access to being my
authenticSelf,
may have some interim value. But ultimately it's little more than a
distraction, a sidebar. That's
why
in my
view,
people who are most like
Werner
ie people who most remind me of
Werneraren't people who are like
Werner.
Wait! What does that even meanLaurence?
What do you mean when you say "People who are most like
Werner,
aren't people who are like
Werner."?
It means people who are real like
Werner,
are people who are most like
themSelves.
I, in other
words,
am not being most real when I'm being like
Werner.
I'm being most real when I'm being like
Laurence.
Without being like
mySelf,
it's pointless ie it's
futile
trying to be real by being like
Werner.
Trying to be real by being like
Werner
("What would
Werner
do?") is a pitfall.
Werner
is like
Werner.
I am like me. I really have no access to being like
Werner.
I only have access to being like me.
Now, with all that said, whatever I may want to call this way of being
(which is to say however I may wish to distinguish it and characterize
it), I'm reluctant to turn it into yet another ism or
another ence or another ology. Yet in order to
reference it, I do need a suitable
word
with which to talk about it - and as far as I can tell, a suitable
word
with which to talk about it, hasn't yet been
coined.
So to give it one, a handle if you will, I
(self-deprecatingly)
invented
"laurenceplattology" which I've transcribed to
The Laurence Platt Dictionary:
