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

Lucid Disclosures

Madison, Wisconsin, USA

December 8, 2010

This essay, Lucid Disclosures, is the third in the fourth trilogy Questions For A Friend: Creating Creating Tell Me Something About Nothing Lucid Disclosures in that order.	The first trilogy Questions For A Friend is: Prelude Ask Me Anything Coming Around Again in that order.

The second trilogy Questions For A Friend is: Familiar Unfamiliar Territory Interview Straight Talk in that order.	The third trilogy Questions For A Friend is: Dancing With My Mouth Cave Paintings Velvet Tsunami in that order.

The fifth trilogy Questions For A Friend is: Closer And Closer Tête À Tête Dancing With Life in that order.	The sixth trilogy Questions For A Friend is: What Would I Ask You If I Could Ask You Anything? Wonderings About Nothing In Particular Tipping Point in that order.

The seventh trilogy Questions For A Friend is: Beyond Breathing Underwater Bold Faced Truth What You Create For Yourself About Me in that order.	The eighth trilogy Questions For A Friend is: Once In A Lifetime Fireside Chat Whole And Complete in that order.

The ninth trilogy Questions For A Friend is: Questions For A Friend Nothing Else I'd Rather Be Doing Free To Be And Free To Act in that order.	The tenth trilogy Questions For A Friend is: Attracted To Dance I Told A Friend I Love You Terse Transformed Communication in that order.

The eleventh trilogy Questions For A Friend is: A Context Worth Playing In Tie The Brush To My Hand Unimaginably Terse in that order.	The twelfth trilogy Questions For A Friend is: What Will I Do When You Die? Access The Newest Piece Of Work in that order.

The thirteenth trilogy Questions For A Friend is: Worthy Of The Company Creating Them For Myself Standing With Masters in that order.	The fourteenth trilogy Questions For A Friend is: This Context Of Privilege I'm Not Going To Let It Go Questions For A Friend XIV III: Not Yet Titled (working title) in that order.

This essay, Lucid Disclosures, is also the second in a quadrilogy inspired by Werner's work in India: Werner Erhard Slide Experience Lucid Disclosures A Man Is The Crowd Eyes Wide Om-pen in that order.

Conversations For Transformation receives its three hundred and fifty thousandth view with the publishing of Lucid Disclosures.

Photography by Commander Dreyvan Dayse, Indian Navy (ret) - 7:07pm Saturday November 27, 2010 - The Leadership Course: Being a Leader and the Effective Exercise of Leadership: An Ontological / Phenomenolgical Model - Asia Plateau, Panchgani, Mahārāshtra, India

Werner Erhard

If there's one thing paramount about being around you, for me it's the opportunity to be reminded of what's possible for language. I'd also say it's the opportunity to be reminded of what's possible for being for human beings. But for now let's focus on what's possible for language, and let's leave what's possible for being for human beings for a conversation on another occasion.

What's possible for language is to generate possibility rather than merely talk about things. And there's never been a time - not once, not ever - when I've spoken with you when a new experience, when a new opportunity, when a new possibility didn't come out of what was spoken. Whenever I get to speak with you I'm reminded as much of how that's possible, as I'm reminded how much I'm thrown as a social animal to settle for exchanging noises which pass for conversations. Being in a conversation with you is the possibility of being transformed.

When I'm in a conversation like this one with you in which something becomes possible, in which something becomes available which wasn't even on the horizon before, it makes me realize although it's not true that "talk is cheap", if I go unconscious during my speaking, if I don't stay present when I'm speaking then I'm the one who cheapens my own talk.

Ordinarily if I said something became possible in a conversation which wasn't possible before, it may sound like we came up with a solution, with an answer, with a resolution ... or something like that. While all of the above may be valuable and useful, they're not what I'm alluding to here.

That to which I'm alluding is the possibility of being fully expressed in speaking. What I get from being around you is being fully expressed in my speaking doesn't require talking a lot. Rather, being fully expressed in my speaking requires being in a relationship with my word as myself so that who I really am is alive in my conversation. That's what I'm referring to when I say being in a conversation with you is the possibility of being transformed.

The First Question

"I'm writing inspired by you, sharing you and I love writing inspired by you, sharing you - giving everything, putting it all at stake, expecting nothing. Does this serve you?"

The whole idea here for me ie my intention with these Conversations For Transformation is to use them to showcase your work, and to develop them as an enrolling internet presence. This is an authentic expression for me. What I'm wary of is having what I do showcasing your work, be in the way of people getting your work. I'm committed that what I do forwards making available what you make available. If I were the art curator in el Museu Picasso in Barcelona, my job would be showcasing Pablo Picasso's masterpieces. The fact that I also paint in my spare time, shouldn't interfere. I'd want you to tell me if what I do interferes with, rather than forwards the action.

<quote>

AS FAR AS I CAN TELL, WHAT YOU WRITE IS USEFUL FOR PEOPLE AND THEREFORE IT SERVES ME.

<unquote>

Thank you for this - for this reconfirmation. Thank you for being the space of trust and permission within which I can freely do what I do. The generosity of this gift of yours, this upping the ante by creating trust as a space within which I experience myself as trusted rather than having to earn trust, isn't lost on me.

The Second Question

"Today around the world your work thrives, expands, and is more widely acknowledged now than it's ever been. Thirty nine years ago, did you know it would be like this?".

Did you know? Did you know when you took what you got on the Golden Gate Bridge and did with it what you did with it, did you know then that this is what would come from it? Did you know? When you started this, did you foresee the enormous impact, the extraordinary gift, the global leading edge it would become?

<quote>

NO.

<unquote>

Hmmm! Not what I anticipated. I anticipated you'd say "Yes, I knew.". If you'd said "Yes" it would have confirmed my postulation of your certainty of its value.

Yet now that I've sat for a bit with your unanticipated "No" in my lap like a hot brick, I'm rocked by how open your future must have been for you back then as you looked ahead. You didn't know it would become this. Yet clearly you knew what you started was valuable. You just didn't know where or how far it would go. So you shared it anyway. And you continued sharing it. And you've never stopped sharing it.

Look what happened. Look how magnificent it's turned out - so far.

The Third Question

"I'm disappointed when people don't get transformation shared ie when they don't register in the possibility of your work. What's the best way to listen 'No'?".

"No" means "No". I have to respect it. But I was like that once also. I was also a "No". At some point I became a "Yes". I assert people want to be a "Yes". It's just force of habit which makes it hard to be an open "Yes" when you've been a defensive "No" all your life. How do I listen for the "Yes" in the face of the "No" while respecting the "No"?

<quote>

LEAVE THE PERSON WITH THE EXPERIENCE THAT THE "NO" EXISTS WHERE YOU ARE, ALONG WITH WHATEVER ELSE WAS THERE WITH THE PERSON WHEN THEY SAID NO.

<unquote>

This is exactly it. Thank You. This is exactly how to listen the "No": just get the "No". Don't do anything with it. Just get it completely. When I get what people say, when I get their communication, there's no diminishing my own experience. When I'm disappointed by what people say, when I don't get their communication, my experience is diminished.

What's interesting, what's patently obvious is when my experience is diminished, I don't share transformation effectively anyway. And when I don't share transformation effectively, it is I - not the "No" - who emboldens the "No".

What's also interesting is the "No" is mostly a statement of defense. It's "No" because it's never experienced being gotten. Getting the "No" may be the first time it's been gotten. Being gotten is the first step toward being enrolled.

The Fourth Question

"If you narrowed it down to one thing, to what do you attribute your own transformation?".

Your spiritual hejira is legend. To what do you attribute it? Was it given to you? If you hadn't immersed yourself in all the disciplines you immersed yourself in, would you still have gotten it? If you immersed yourself in all the disciplines you immersed yourself in but in a different sequence, would you still have gotten it? What's the one thing without which you wouldn't have transformation?

<quote>

WAKING UP TO THE TRUTH ABOUT MYSELF AND MY LIFE.

<unquote>

I'm inspired by this. So it's true what I've always surmised: it was none of the above. You created your own transformation out of your own experience of who you really are! Man! I'm inspired by this. It's something I can take on. It's more than that actually. It's something, now that you've said it, I've already taken on. There's nothing exclusive about it. No special skills are required. Mostly there's no excuse for not taking it on. If Life doesn't work because you haven't woken up to the truth about yourself and your life, who ya gonna call? I mean really?

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