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


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Old Cars

Cowboy Cottage, East Napa, California, USA

June 8, 2024



"There is no such thing as consciousness, there is only conscious of."
... 
"One of the psychological problems in growing old is the fear of death. People resist the door of death. But this body is a vehicle of awareness, and if you can identify with the awareness, you can watch this body go like an old car. There goes the fender, there goes the tire, one thing after another - but it's predictable. And then, gradually, the whole thing drops off, and awareness rejoins awareness. It is no longer in this particular environment."
... Randy McNamara, Landmark Forum Leader Emeritus, paraphrasing Joseph John Campbell (The Power of Myth) by replacing "consciousness" with "awareness"
"Is 'conscious of' the same as 'awareness'?"
... Laurence Platt inquiring
"Cowards die many time before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once. Of all the wonders that I yet have heard, it seems to me most strange that men should fear; seeing that death, a necessary end, will come when it will come."
... William Shakespeare embodying Julius Cæsar, Act II, Scene II, Cæsar's House
"From the fool's gold mouthpiece the hollow horn plays wasted words, proves to warn that he not busy being born is busy dying."
... Robert Allen Zimmerman aka Bob Dylan, It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)
This essay, Old Cars, is the companion piece to Zoom With The Master II: Ontological Trout Fishing.

It is also the sixth in a hexalogy on Death And Dying:
  1. Where You Go When You Die
  2. The Only Thing You Have To Do Is Die
  3. What Will I Do When You Die?
  4. That Which Never Dies: A Conversation Over High Tea
  5. Who I'll Be When You Die
  6. Old Cars
I am indebted to Randy McNamara who inspired this conversation and contributed material.




It's an inquiry that began with a question (as so many great ones do). A mutual colleague had died. A great person. A great friend. An almost saintly figure in anyone's life who had the good fortune to know her. I said (almost dismissively) "Do you know so-and-so  died?". After a shocked pause, he said "No  ..." then after another pause "What did she die of?". That's not an unusual question to ask when someone dies, yes? In response, it isn't unusual to cite one or more symptoms we assume are the usual reasons for death. I opened my mouth to reply ... then shut it again. Clearly the usual reasons don't address the question truthfully. Indeed the usual reasons obfuscate the truth. So I retorted "What did she die of? She died because her life ended!" (that's  the truth).

We talk as if the symptoms at the time of death are the symptoms of what caused death. We say things like "She died of a brain aneurysm" or "She died of heart failure.". Maybe that's a naïve view of it - like Santa, the tooth fairy. But what did she die of really?  She died because  she died / because her life ended ... and  ... she died with things going on with her body, of which there were symptoms. Now: is there a causal relationship between them? We sure do glom  them together as if there is, don't we? Yet maybe there isn't really.

This body is a vehicle of awareness. So analogously, our bodies are the cars in which our awareness travels around. And as our cars become older and frailer, they steadily degrade and eventually fail. They rust, they emit smoke, they leak oil. Axles break. Wheels fall off. Now let's take a close look at cause  here.

Do old cars fail be-cause  they rust? Or is rust just what shows up when cars get old? Do old cars fail because they emit smoke? Or is smoke just what shows up when cars get old? Do old cars fail because they leak oil? Or are oil leaks just what show up when cars get old? Do old cars fail because the axles break and the wheels fall off? Or are axles breaking and wheels falling off just more of what happens when cars get old? (you get the idea, it's inexorable).

Of course we could (and should) counter-challenge that symptoms like brain aneurysms and heart failure do  cause death, and aren't merely symptoms at the time we die. Surely it's an area worth exploring? Look: to me, it's an unresolved fairy tale. And here's the trouble I have with it: would having no brain aneurysms or heart failure mean that our bodies would live forever?  In life, our bodies, like old cars, aren't going to live forever. They'll die when they die, not a moment sooner, not a moment later - and no brain aneurysm or heart failure, not the presence nor the absence thereof, will change that inevitability.

It's this line of inquiry which gives access to dying without fear. Old cars don't last forever. Death will come. To die without fear is to let death be, and as we all know from Transformation 101, when we let a thing be, it lets us be. Consider this (not like it's "The Truth"  but rather like it's powerful leverage):  death is only a problem when I don't let it be. When I don't let it be, there's no respite from the fear of death. Indeed maybe the one surefire action that's called for to provide respite from the fear of death is recontextualizing  (I love  that word) what old cars will do: they'll break down. That's just what old cars do.

It's not becoming old and frail of which I'll die. It's not whatever has the raft of symptoms which goeswith  dying (as Alan Watts may have said) of which I'll die, even though we all assume it is. It's that what I'll die of is the end of my life. And when I die, there will be things going on with my body, of which there'll be symptoms (rust, smoke, oil leaks, broken axles, missing wheels). That's the plain, simple truth. And I can be with the plain, simple truth. Really.



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