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




London "I":

*The Memorandum*

London Eye, London, England

January 19, 2013



This essay, London "I": The Memorandum, is the companion piece to
  1. Standing In The River
  2. An Experience Like A Red balloon, A Life Like A Concrete Form: A Manifesto
  3. Friend Of The Physical Universe: Manifesto II
in that order.

It is also the fifth in a group of five written in London, January 2013:
  1. Turned Tables
  2. Don't Regulate The Tate
  3. English Tea
  4. Blameless
  5. London "I": The Memorandum
in that order.

This group of five written in London, January 2013 is the sequel to Clear For Takeoff.

I am indebted to my daughter Alexandra Lindsey Platt who contributed material for this conversation.




I haven't got (so I don't offer) any methods or strategies for success. While I recognize and admire successful people, success doesn't attract me when it's pursued simply to amass, or even when it's a vehicle for winning in avoidance of  (in fact in fear  of) losing. What I'm attracted to is what works. So if I'm interested in any aspect of success at all, I'm interested in that je ne sais quoi, that way of being successful which goeswith  (as Alan Watts may have said) living what works. By "living what works" I'm referring to expressing who I really am, used by ie in‑a‑dance‑with  the endless possibilities of Life itself.

This particular form of Self expression which comes out of expressing who I really am, used by ie in‑a‑dance‑with the endless possibilities of Life itself, completely mesmerizes  me. It's an awesome, ineffable, magnificent, splendid, wondrous thing. To be successful in‑a‑dance‑with the endless possibilities of Life itself, is the only success worth striving for. To be famous for being in‑a‑dance‑with the endless possibilities of Life itself, is the only worthwhile fame.



Living In‑A‑Dance‑With Life Itself



Photography by Symon Productions - 2004
Werner on the London Eye
I'm not attracted to success when it's pursued simply to amass. More than that, I'm no longer interested in making my life work.

Wait! It's so easy to miss the profundity of my second admission - most likely because I didn't emphasize it properly. I'll say it again with the emphasis in the right place this time: "I'm no longer interested in making  my life work". Here's why: any attempts (which, by the way, are all invariably futile) to make  my life work, to try  to make my life work, fly in the face of Life works. It's worse than that actually. It's any attempts I make to have my life work, continually grind into reality  the belief my life doesn't already  work.

"Life works" isn't "the Truth". It's a place to stand. I stand in this place where Life works ie where my  life already works - which is to say, I stand that  Life works. From this space of my life already works, I'm in‑a‑dance‑with Life itself. This isn't positive thinking  or affirming something as a means to making it materialize. The proof of the view that Life works, is this: you're alive. So when I'm living in‑a‑dance‑with Life itself, my life works because Life works. It takes all the struggle and the effort out of living successfully.

This is why Conversations For Transformation don't propose any methods or strategies for success or for winning. You're alive, so you're already successful. You're alive, so you've already won. Stop pretending it isn't this way. Stop pretending you don't get it. Rather, ask "What's next?". Now that's  a question worth asking. Neither asking how to succeed nor asking and how to win, is powerful. Play from  win.

Conversations For Transformation are entirely my own work - except I'm one of those guys who considers it important to acknowledge source. If you're a classical musician, you acknowledge Ludwig van Beethoven or Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. If you're a painter, you acknowledge Leonardo da Vinci or Pablo Ruiz y Picasso or whoever your inspirations are. That's real. That's authentic. To say Conversations For Transformation are entirely my own work, is only partially true, and therefore not real, and therefore inauthentic. Conversations For Transformation come from Werner Erhard - which is to say, they come from my conversations with Werner Erhard. To pretend it's any other way is not only not true, not real, and inauthentic: it's also childish and immature.

Photography by Alexandra Lindsey Platt - 2:19pm Saturday January 19, 2013
Laurence on the London Eye
Inside of these Conversations For Transformation (both the ones with Werner as well as the ones I write myself), the object is to communicate an experience rather than simply impart new information. This experience is transformation. If this works and you get  the experience of transformation, you'll take it out into the world because that's its true nature. Said another way, once you get transformation, you also get possibility. Transformation and possibility: inseparable - like the front and the back of my hand.

What inspires me is the opportunity to express transformation in language. I spend a lot of my time expressing transformation in writing, even though the real expression of transformation is in speaking. But whether or not transformation is expressed in writing or in speaking, both genres  (if you will) have something in common, which is this: you can write about  transformation and you can speak about  transformation, without communicating transformation  in much the same way as you can write about swimming and you can speak about swimming without communicating the experience  of swimming and even without getting wet.

There's another way, and that's to drop the "about" - like this: write transformation  rather than write about  transformation; speak transformation  rather than speak about  transformation. This is an experiential  distinction. It's subtle and profound. It's being transformed  rather than knowing about  transformation. This opportunity to bring forth transformation as language  secondarily in writing and primarily in speaking, is enough to get me out of bed early in the morning and to keep me up late at night. There's no greater calling than this.

And it never ends. The work of transformation ie Werner's work never ends. It is / Life is an ongoing work in progress. I'm clear I'll never get to the end of this work. To live Life as if it's a work which can be completed and which will  be completed, is to miss the point entirely. The best it gets for me is to live Life as an ongoing, never will be completed, contiguous work in progress, all the while creating for myself the experience of being complete it's this way.


* From the Cambridge International Dictionary:

<quote>

Definition
memorandum


noun
a short written report prepared specially for a person or group of people which contains information about a particular matter; an informal legal agreement

<unquote>


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