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

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The Odds Are Even For Everyone

Claremont Way, Napa, California, USA

October 1, 2020
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"The unexamined life is not worth living." ... Socrates
"An untransformed life is not worth living." ... 
"You and I possess within ourselves, at every moment of our lives, under all circumstances, the power to transform the quality of our lives." ... 
"It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God." ... Jesus Christ quoted by Matthew the apostle
This essay, The Odds Are Even For Everyone, is the tenth in an open group sourced by Werner Erhard's seminal quote above, on the Power To Transform:
  1. Whack!
  2. Under All Circumstances
  3. Source Of Aliveness
  4. Damned Choice
  5. For People Who Don't Love Themselves
  6. Still Standing: Musings On The Permanent Impermanence Of Transformation
  7. Living Without Distortion
  8. No, It's What You Say  About It
  9. Transforming The Untransformable
  10. The Odds Are Even For Everyone
in that order.

Photography and collage by Screen Media Films
Section from poster for A Film by Robyn Symon: Transformation: The Life and Legacy of Werner Erhard
Film review - Film preview - Purchase DVD - Watch film now


Some time around now (it may have been closer to the last weekend of August in 1978, but nevertheless some time around NOW)  it dawned on me that all people (ie all of us) are equal. "Wait! Stop, Laurence. That's hardly remarkable. It's a very old idea that's been held dear by all good people everywhere for ages. It's certainly not original. Aren't you a bit ... well ... late  coming to the table with that one?" you may ask.

Look: if it sounds like you've heard it before (ie if it harkens to the Declaration of Human Rights  for example), what dawned on me is not that. There's the cherished (and arguably unexamined) idea of all people being equal. Then there's the unspoken possibility  prior to / inherent in that idea. What dawned on me was the latter: the possibility inherent in the idea that all people are equal regardless of color, social class, or income level. While the idea is touched on in the Declaration of Human Rights and in most conversations addressing us all being equal, its possibility is mostly unexamined, or overlooked or underestimated - or combinations of the above.

All things taken into account, all things every human being deals with (and has to deal with) in life, all of our ways of being, all experiences out-here, all chosen outcomes, all circumstantial predicaments aside, what makes us equal is every one of us has an access to a certain way of being with life, a transformed  way of being with life and its circumstances. And it's this access, available to everyone, which makes us equal. And no one has any less of it. And no one has any more of it. Really.

Said another way, all things taken into account, all things every human being deals with (and has to deal with) in life, all of our ways of being, all experiences out-here, all chosen outcomes, all circumstantial predicaments aside, every one of us has the possibility of transforming the quality of our lives. What makes all people equal is not our skin color, social class, or income bracket. What makes us all equal is the access we each have to the possibility of being transformed, a possibility which is available to people of all colors, all social classes, and all income brackets equally. That's the possibility that makes us equal, and with which we're equally empowered.

People of all colors have exactly the same access to this possibility of transforming their lives. People of all classes have exactly the same access to this possibility of transforming their lives. People of all income levels have exactly the same access to this possibility of transforming their lives. Even if you could change your color, you wouldn't gain a different access to a transformed life. Not being fulfilled, is an EOD  (Equal Opportunity Destroyer). In the EOD zone, skin color counts for not a whit. Being in a higher class won't give you an easier access to a transformed life either. And having a higher income certainly  won't give you a better or an easier access to a transformed life. Listen: people in high income brackets have huge  issues. You may covet the big money (and don't we all?). But to have  the big money, you have to commit to doing what people with big money do to get it - and face it: that may not be a grand proposition. People in high income brackets owe banks and lenders enormous  sums of money. Being wealthy comes with perks. But it also comes with its own headaches, and with no guarantee of any easier access to transformation.

Every one if us has a unique set of circumstances, whatever they may be. That much is obvious. None of us has the option of swapping our own set of circumstances for someone else's. So our relationship with our circumstances, regardless of color, social class, or income level is always  "one to one" for life. That's inviolate. And the odds are even for everyone, given every one of us, no matter what our circumstances, is empowered with the exact same access to a certain way of being with life, a transformed way of being with life and its circumstances. It's this that's prior to the Declaration of Human Rights. It's this common power that makes all of us equal.


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