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

Looking Into The Space:

Reflections On Synchronicity And Mystery

Auberge du Soleil, Rutherford, California, USA

October 6, 2009


This essay, Looking Into The Space: Reflections On Synchronicity And Mystery, is the companion piece to Mystery.

I am indebted to Earl Vought who inspired this conversation.


Conversations For Transformation create a space in which transformation can show up for readers. I'm not surprised by this - at least, I'm not surprised by this any more.

Language is the domain of transformation. More specifically, the spoken  word is the domain of transformation. "I speak, therefore I am"  (as René Descartes may have said). Although the written  word is one degree removed from the spoken word and is therefore one degree removed from the domain of transformation, it's already been established for me it's possible for transformation, one degree removed, to show up in the written word.

I was first exposed to the proof of the possibility of transformation showing up in the written word when reading Professor William Warren "Bill" Bartley III's official biography of Werner Erhard titled "Werner Erhard: The Transformation of a Man - The Founding of est". By the time I started creating Conversations For Transformation, I already knew it was possible to create a space for readers in which transformation can show up.

I get these Conversations For Transformation, the written word, create space for transformation. I get that's just what's so about them. But as for their synchronicity, I don't get how  or why  they have synchronicity. Yet having synchronicity also seems to be just what's so about them.

What do I mean by their synchronicity?

From the Cambridge International Dictionary:

<quote>
Definition
synchronicity

noun
the happening by chance of two or more related or similar events at the same time
<unquote>

An example of what I mean by their synchronicity is this: I write Conversations For Transformation, then people ask "How do you do it? How did you time this essay so well? This is exactly right  for me to read right now.". Here, synchronicity would imply what's exactly right  for me to write right now is also exactly right  for people to read right now.

The truth is I have no idea  how I do it - if, indeed, I do anything at all. I've got no special attention on timing anything. I'm not waiting for an appropriate moment  to say what I say ie to write  what I write. I'm not looking for anything topical  to cover. Nor am I picking something in the popular gossip pool  to report on either. Rather, what I do is looking into the space  I write about whatever's there. That's what I do. That's all I do.

I get it about the synchronicity. Based on what people tell me, new Conversations For Transformation do indeed seem to come out at just the right time. How can this be? I've got a theory about it, and it's this:

There's always only one time, and that time is now. It's always now, and it's always now  for each of us. If I'm looking into the space and I'm seeing Get A Life now, for example, then I suppose other people could also be looking into the space and seeing Get A Life now  as well. If it's always now  for me and it's always now  for you, then it's possible what shows up in the space of my now  also shows up in the space of your now. So if I'm looking into the space and I see Get A Life which I write, then when you read it, you say "How do you do it? How did you time this essay so well? This is exactly right  for me to hear right now.". No surprise here: Get A Life was and is, at the same time, in the space of both of our nows.

That's not "the truth", mind you. It's just my stab at what might be happening, and it's a long shot  at best. But could it really  be what's happening? Is it really  the overview which accounts for the synchronicity of Conversations For Transformation? Is it really  how it works? In truth, I really don't have a clue  how it works.

Here's another possible way of looking at this synchronicity: things show up exactly when they do for everyone  at the same time because nothing is as powerful as an idea whose time has come (as Victor Hugo may have said). In other words, Get A Life shows up simply because it's an idea whose time has come. It shows up now  in the space for you at the same time as it shows up now  in the space for me. Perhaps there's no difference  between these spaces. Perhaps there's no difference  between your  space and my  space. Perhaps it's the same space  for all of us. Perhaps the only thing I may do different than you (and this rem is a trivial  difference, by the way) is when Get A Life shows up, I write Get A Life down and you don't.

But as I said, that's not "the truth"  either. It's just another stab at what might be happening, another long shot  at best. Personally I prefer to allow the synchronicity of Conversations For Transformation to remain a mystery.

Be careful - be very careful. By mystery  I'm not implying some dark, foreboding unknown  which we small creatures are unable to grasp. By mystery I'm simply implying just mystery  - nothing more, nothing less. Rather than the inadequacy which is tangible when mystery is some dark, foreboding unknown which we small creatures are unable to grasp, when mystery is allowed to simply be just mystery, then a sense of awe, reverence, seniority, and wonder is what's there when looking into the space.


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