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

The Un-Con

Vallejo Ferry Dock, Vallejo, California, USA

August 27, 2015

"We won't get fooled again." ... The Who

"There are two ways to be fooled: one is to believe what isn't true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true." ... Søren Kierkegaard

This essay, The Un-Con, is the sequel to Resting On Your Laurels Is Deadly.

I am indebted to Eric Edberg who inspired this conversation.

People (many people actually) have declined my invitations to participate in Werner's work. That's the truth. The truth is also: exponentially more have accepted. This conversation is about one particular reason people give for declining. Some reasons for declining are simply ongoing rackets. Others are perfectly valid. The thing about invitations (that is, if they're authentic invitations) is they can be declined or accepted. I only became effective in inviting people to participate in Werner's work once I got clear about people's freedom to decline.

While reasons for declining per se are often little more than excuses which do little to capture my imagination, I'm interested in one reason specifically. It's a reason which gets to the heart of what it is to be a human being as well as what it is to participate in Werner's work. It's a reason which comes in various forms, colors, and flavors - such as:

1)	"Werner's work is a con". It's not a bad thing to be wary of ie to be cautious of a con. But like riding a bicycle, I won't know what it's like until I do it myself. Other peoples' hearsay (not to mention my own hearsay) that it's a con, doesn't give the experience of what it really is ie it doesn't give any experience actually.
2)	"I'll get conned" ie "I'm afraid of being conned". Given our already always listening, defense mechanisms, survival instincts etc it's totally plausible that the possibility of transformation shows up up as a con ie as a threat. "I'm afraid of being conned" is really very honest.
3)	"I'm afraid other people will think I've been conned". This is the often unspoken truth behind flavor #2. There's only one thing worse than the fear of being conned, and that's the fear other people will think I've been conned. Horrors!

It's Too Late!

Here's what's so ironic about the fear of being conned: we've already been conned. Seriously. Sorry guys but it's true. We've already been conned - big time. Here's what I mean by that:

Life has already conned us. Life has conned us into learning to limit ourselves, conned us into knowing it's prudent to limit ourselves, conned us into trading aliveness for survival, conned us into believing it's smart to trade aliveness for survival, conned us into downplaying the value of integrity in our lives, conned us into putting the "cheap" into our talking (and we all know "talk is cheap", yes?), conned us into settling for living lives dissatisfied and incomplete, then learning to grin and bear it because (as we all know) it's just this way ... etc etc and I'm only getting started.

That's the delicious irony of this: you're afraid of being conned - in particular, you're afraid of being conned by Werner. Well guess what? It's too late! You've already been conned.

Check Your Fear At The Door

Here's what you can expect to discover from participating in Werner's work - should you choose to do so:

You can expect to discover where you've limited yourself, to re-examine those limits, and to re-choose whether you want to reinstate them or discard them entirely. You can expect to discover where you're willing to trade aliveness for survival, to re-examine where you do this in your life, and to re-choose whether or not you want to continue compromising your aliveness. You can expect to discover where you're downplaying the impact of being out of integrity (you probably already know the areas where you do this, and you haven't 'fessed up about them), to carefully examine the costs of being out of integrity, and to choose to reinstate integrity in these areas, nor not.

You can expect to discover the power of your speaking, not like giving speeches but rather like discovering your languaging and your word as a reliable access to who you really are. You can expect to discover whether or not it's required that you continue living dissatisfied and incomplete, when really those are merely self-imposed constraints which you can give up any time you choose to.

You can discover all this as long as you're willing to set aside your fear of being conned by Werner long enough to register to participate in Werner's work ie as long as you're willing to check your fear at the door. I promise it will still be there waiting for you intact if you want it back later ... and ... if you forget to collect it when you leave, there's a very good chance you won't even notice it's missing.

What I'd like you to consider is Werner's work isn't the con you're afraid it is. And I totally get how it may show up as a con to be wary of, before you experience it for yourself personally and directly like riding a bicycle (we all have that fear to one degree or another - I certainly did).

You'll discover it's not a con. You've already been conned. You'll discover it's the un-con.

Communication Promise

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