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

Portal

Chicago, Illinois, USA

July 25, 2010


This essay, Portal, is the third in the sixth trilogy Visits With A Friend:
  1. Sophisticated Palate
  2. Open To Everyone
  3. Portal
in that order. 		The first trilogy Visits With A Friend is:
  1. Second First Impression
  2. Do Artists Retire?
  3. Presence Of Love
in that order.
The second trilogy Visits With A Friend is:
  1. Black Brick
  2. Wet Water
  3. On Saying Nothing
in that order. 		The third trilogy Visits With A Friend is:
  1. Master Of Life
  2. Face To Face
  3. Love And Kindness
in that order.
The fourth trilogy Visits With A Friend is:
  1. Personal Piece
  2. Magnum Opus
  3. Walk A Way With Me
in that order. 		The fifth trilogy Visits With A Friend is:
  1. Natural Expression
  2. Essential Question
  3. There Is No "The Answers"
in that order.
The seventh trilogy Visits With A Friend is:
  1. Meetings With A Remarkable Man
  2. Being Directed By The Unanswered Question
  3. Out Here
in that order. 		The eighth trilogy Visits With A Friend is:
  1. Visits With A Friend VIII (working title) : Coming
  2. Visits With A Friend VIII II (working title) : Coming
  3. Visits With A Friend VIII III (working title) : Coming
in that order.
The sixth trilogy Visits With A Friend is the sequel to View From A Fallow Wheatfield and the prequel to Tempered Tornado.


There's really only one game worth playing. There's really only one thing worth expressing. But when you express it you better keep changing the subject or you'll lose people's attention.

That's what occurs for me as I share my experience writing Conversations For Transformation with you. What they are, I say, are the one same expression said five hundred different ways. I wonder out loud if this is how your endeavors occur for you too. I suspect they do, so I ask. That's when the conversation gets really  interesting.

There are now so many different iterations and expressions of your work, of transformation in the world. There are now so many different iterations and expressions of transformation in action  in the world, none of which are static. You're constantly refining them, streamlining them, and rendering them more powerful faster. That doesn't mean there's been anything wrong or inadequate with, or missing from any of the earlier versions. In fact it shows how successful they've been, successful enough to attract a huge  listening in millions and millions  of people. Once you're generating the work of transformation in the listening of millions and millions  of people, inevitably new ideas will come forth which then can and should be re-incorporated into the conversation which created the space for them to come forth in the first place. Transformation, it could be said, is as vast as the listening for it is in the world.

By now, some of the top stage and screen actors on the planet credit you with the vehicle, the catalyst which allows them to hone their craft. By now, hundreds and hundreds  of business consulting and coaching companies license your technology which, when delivered in the financial world, don't only impact and empower teamwork and efficiency in the Fortune 1000  group, but they also have favorable sway on their stock price. By now, a who's who  list of respectable academic institutions deliver your work or collaborate in developing it to the next level. Harvard Business School and Harvard Law School aren't exactly what you would call fly by night  colleges mass producing counterfeit diplomas for profit. The genie is out of the bottle now and she ain't going back in anytime soon.

So what I want to know from you is this: isn't all of this  just the same conversation spoken over and over and over  again to millions and millions and millions of people but with a constantly changing subject line to keep people's attention? The question then is: what is  this conversation really? I mean really?  And what is it which keeps people so interested in the work you do in all  its iterations and expressions?

We talk about the Self  at play in the world, one Self expressing itself over and over again in millions and millions of forms. The Self is at play  in the world, and you're a portal  through which the Self comes into the world and plays. When you bring this to drama, you've got riveting Academy Award  winning performances. When you bring this to business, you've got failing companies completely turned around  having resolved nasty labor disputes and posting a healthy profit. When you bring this to academia, you have the respectability and acceptance that has the power to silence even the most virulent critics.

You're leaning against a tree (I can almost sense its trunk relishing its moment to support you) saying how people miss the occurrence of the external world as a projection of their own machinery. Once they get that, they're empowered to unleash their innate ability to create limitlessly.

"I bet you drive the religious fundamentalists crazy with that one" I say, and there's a smile - yours or mine, I'm not really sure whose. It's silent briefly. The full, golden moon is just rising. It's a perfect moment. "That's alright" you say after pausing to take in the moon breaching the horizon.

It is. It's quite alright. The Self coming into the world through the portal you are and playing as full on  as it likes for as long as it likes in as many different iterations and expressions as it likes, is quite alright.


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