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

Poet Laureate IV

Brian Arden Winery, Calistoga, California, USA

December 1, 2016
"There are certain things you can only know by creating them for yourself."  ...   quoted by Richard Feynman, Nobel Prize-winning physicist 
"People are usually more convinced by reasons they discovered themselves than by those found out by others." ... Blaise Pascal, mathematician, inventor, writer, philosopher

"Don't thank me. Thank Werner." ... Laurence Platt, ordinary human being
This essay, Poet Laureate IV, is the fourth in the quadrilogy Poet Laureate:
  1. Poet Laureate I
  2. Poet Laureate II
  3. Poet Laureate III
  4. Poet Laureate IV
in that order.


The whole idea here is to share an experience. When I say that, I'm not entirely certain it can even be shared this way. Discovering whether or not it can be done, is at best a continuing work in progress for me. This is, after all, the written word and not the spoken word. And the medium for communicating transformation (which is to say the medium for communicating the experience of transformation and not a discourse about it), is the spoken word not the written word. Now why is it this way? It just is  this way. That said, I suppose there could  be a logical explanation. But so much would be lost in delivering it, as to make any explanation counter-productive. The thing I want to keep in mind is: the end-game here is the experience of transformation not its explanation. Listening for this distinction is what keeps me straight.

More than that, the domain in which you and I experience transformation is a domain other than  the domain in which we explain transformation. If you're not keeping your wits about you, it's likely that the very act of explaining transformation, will entrap you into forfeiting your experience of transformation. That's the catch-22  right there. The written word is at best a close approximation to the spoken word. But it's the spoken word however, which is the authentic medium for transformation. And therein lies the confront in writing anything purported to be appropriate to such a grandiose title as "Conversations For Transformation". Given this is what I'm writing, I'm confronted by it ongoingly ie I'm always up against it. This is my laboratory (so to speak). I don't know of any other place to work in which it's likely to go better.

Now I don't want this website to be a some kind of a textbook  or even a dictionary (although inevitably there'll be a bit of that), and I certainly don't want this to be a course  - or (worse) a substitute for participating in one. At best, it is a place to where you can come on the internet and find materials which support your personal inquiries into the possibility of being transformed, and your relationship with Werner. Indeed, you'll find videos and papers created by Werner here. But even as I make them available for you, I'm acutely aware his videos and his papers are also only a close approximation to his face-to-face  spoken word. In this way, arguably the only truly authentic experience of Werner this website points to, is your participation in the next course he leads. That's his face-to-face spoken word ie that's the real deal.

So what then is  available here that's as authentic as possible, given this medium in which I work? What is on offer here are written accounts of what it's like standing in the space of transformation, and by that I don't mean written accounts about  standing in the space of transformation (although inevitably there'll be some of them too), but rather written accounts coming from  the space of transformation. That way, what-ever  their content is, it is imbued with transformation. Arguably that's the sure-fire-est  way to share the experience of transformation in writing in this medium, in which transformation can not be spoken and / or listened directly face-to-face.

And that's really all I do. Life and the world looks a certain way standing on a platform of the experience of transformation (or coming from the experience of who we really are - if you will). It looks totally different standing in the milieu  of the circumstances of our lives. Discovering how to differentiate between these two, is maybe the essential component of the process of transforming your life. As long as this distinction remains undiscovered, transformation isn't and can't be a living possibility.

It's all I can do to write these conversations I am, in a way which is faithful to this experience so that their words track the same brain patterns for you when you read them, as they track for me when I write them, and in that way convey the same experience. This is risky business. It may succeed or become a fiasco. Actually I'm not focused on either outcome. My intent is to write them. That's all. They are what they are. These conversations will speak to you for themselves. Or they won't. Really.


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