The way this started was with a scattered collection of
written
pieces, some jotted down on scraps of paper, some inked on
cards,
some printed on greetingscards,
some saved to floppy disks (remember them?) from the early
days of
e-mail.
They all came together in an epiphany while riding my bicycle twenty
miles up the
Napa Valley
and back. I posted everything I had at the time to the
internet
on a newly
createdwebsite
titled
"The Werner Erhard
Essays"
subtitled
"Conversations For
Transformation".
If you know where to look on the
internet
for archives of older
websites,
you can still find the home page titled
"The Werner Erhard
Essays".
My idea for giving
the website
a title like that, was it would imply all the pieces posted to it were
inspired by
Werner's work
- and that much has never deviated one iota. Some time later when we
met for a drink (don't get ahead of me: it was iced
water
for both of us), he made what in retrospect was a most obvious point:
what the title
"The Werner Erhard
Essays"
ambiguously conveys (at least to those not in the know) was that it's
he not I who is the author of the pieces on the
website,
rather than their inspiration. I got it. After a brief brainstorm, the
title of the
website
became
"Conversations For
Transformation"
(its erstwhile subtitle) (his idea), and
"The Werner Erhard
Essays"
(its current title) disappeared entirely (my idea).
One of the unavoidable things about putting something like this out
into
the world
is you have no control over who's reading it. Both
graduates
of
Werner's work
and
non-graduates
alike, both
friends
and enemies, both the supportive and the hostile, have equal unfettered
access. It takes a certain gall, a particular verve, a
consistent courage to continually stand for
Werner
and
transformation
not simply in a closed, reserved room with an invited,
friendly
audience, but rather
completely
exposed and
naked before youout-here
on the
wild west frontier
of the
internet.
All that said, during the course of the nearly so far twelve year life
of these
Conversations For
Transformation,
I've received hundreds and hundreds, possibly thousands, of
e-mails
from readers like you who are
graduates
of
Werner's work,
and
non-graduates
alike. And in that
time
I've received one negative, hostile
e-mail.
Just one. No kidding. Only one. That's not a bad statistic.
There's something else in addition to consistent courage which doing
this requires, and I'm just beginning to distinguish it, so I'm not yet
completely
clear about
how
to say what it is.
So far, this is the way it sounds: "It's something I can't
not do.".
When this started, my entire underlying expression in each of these
Conversations For
Transformation
was saying to
Werner
"Keep on doing what you're doing. It's
working.
Don't stop.". Soon however, I realized with or without my
encouragement, he'll continue doing what he's doing anyway. This is
who he is.
And when I got that, that's when these
Conversations For
Transformationmorphed. That's when they became expressions of appreciation,
expressions of admiration, expressions of
love.
And if you ask me for a
reasonwhy
I post them to the
internet,
there isn't one. There's no gratuitous "in order to". On the
other hand, you could say the
reasonwhy
I post them to the
internet
is: I post them to the
internetin order to to post them to the
internet.
There's no other
reason.
Honest!
From "Keep on doing what you're doing etc" they've become "I
love
what you're doing". From faux encouragement, they've
become
lovenotes
(if you will). They first became
lovenotes
to him. Then I realized if the truth be told, they're
lovenotes
to you as well.
Actually they've always been
lovenotes
to you as well. Always. Right from the beginning. I just didn't
realize this aspect of it until later. But after I realized they're
lovenotes
to him, I realized then that by definition, they're
lovenotes
to you as well. Once you get what
transformation
really is, then they can't be any other way, yes?