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 Very Best Of Me
Cosentino, Yountville, California, YSA
December 28, 2013
It's truly one of the most freeing
views
I've ever tried on, then taken on for myself for life. To be
straight
about this, it's something I got in a conversation with
Werner
rather than something I came up with originally for myself. So in case
you were
wondering,
yes it is better to say it's one of the most freeing
views
I've ever taken on for myself for life, rather than saying it's one of
the most freeing
views
I've ever
created
for myself for life.
It's true when you take on someone's
view
for your life, anyview,
you still have to
create
it (which is to say you still have to
re-create
it) for yourself if it's going to have any power. That much is obvious.
If you share a
view
with me ie your way (or one of your ways) of looking at Life, I still
have to
re-create
it for myself to try it on - I can't look at Life through your eyes,
yes? However, I prefer to give credit where credit is due (things seem
to
work
better that way ie acknowledging
Werner
is pragmatic for me). Here's what it
is:
There's no top to this
mountain
we're climbing. This
mountain
which is our lives, seems from time to time to have a top which is
within reach, and it sometimes seems that if we climb a little more, if
we climb a little higher, if we climb a little faster, if we climb a
little more determinedly, we could reach the top. But then when
we reach the top, we catch sight of another top even
higher than the one we just ascended, one we either didn't see before
or which was hidden from our
view
before. And
listen
(who knows?): it's also entirely possible this
mountain
called Life keeps on growing taller especially when the
top is in sight ie especially when we're convinced we've reached the
top.
So I've shifted the way I look at the
mountain
of my life. My focus used to be determined by the reason I climbed this
mountain
in the first place: to reach the top - because that (it seemed) is what
we're supposed to do. Now my focus is on just climbing.
Is there any point in climbing if we'll never reach the top because the
mountain keeps on growing taller as we climb? The answer is
unequivocally no there's not. There's no point. It's
empty and meaningless.
And it's
empty and meaningless
that it's
empty and meaningless.
So
why
climb at all? I climb because I
love
climbing. That's it. The
mountain
keeps growing taller as I climb. So I'll never reach the top. The
erstwhile goal of reaching the top is pointless. It's never going to
happen. I climb because the truth is I
love
climbing. This
view
of Life as climbing a
mountain
with no top,
works.
That's what was in the space one evening at the
Cowboy Cottage
as we sat outside, talking in the brisk clean air, warmed by an open
fire I set in the barbecue kettle, watching the
moon
rise. I
love
talking with her. In her conversation I hear the
listening
I need to speak to if I'm going to call myself a
communicator. Communication isn't speaking to that which I already
know for myself. Communication is speaking to another's
listening
- whatever that
listening
may be. With regard to living Life as climbing a
mountain
with no top, her
listening,
while generous and attentive, was a jumble
of "Yeah, but ..."s, "What if ..."s, and "How 'bout ..."s
- you know, she expressed doubt and
confusion
and skepticism, yet all the while a genuine
interest
as well.
"Yeah, but what if you doubt
yourself"
she asked. "What do you do when you're climbing the
mountain
and you doubt your ability? What if you're disappointed? What do you do
when you're disappointed in your own progress? How about sadness?".
That's pretty good, I thought. We often don't cop to our own sadness.
Yet it's almost always there in the
background
in one degree or another. "What do you do when you're sad because you
can't climb high enough or long enough to achieve something
worthwhile?" ... on and on ... you know, she had it on automatic. But
I'll grant her credit: she was on to something.
"Look" I said, "if you can let
self-doubt,
and disappointment, and sadness just be ... if you can let
them be like the weather, coming and going, ever changing by itself,
if you can grant them the space to be there without wanting them gone,
things actually go a lot easier and they'll disappear by themselves a
lot sooner. For me, my own
self-doubt,
disappointment, and sadness are my humanity. They're qualities
which make me uniquely human. They're qualities which make Laurence
uniquely Laurence. I don't have a problem with them
showing up
when they do. They are, in fact, the very best of me. They're
qualities to embrace. They're mine, all mine!".
I was about to continue. I wanted to say more, long after I had
actually completed making my point.
My mouth
half opened to start my
next
sentence when I noticed a new look on her
face.
She had just gotten something. I could tell it was profound. I didn't
want to risk interfering with it, whatever it was. So I shut
my mouth
instead, and waited.
Then she finally spoke. "That's
interesting.
I never saw that before" she said. "All that stuff, all the
self-doubt,
all the disappointment, all the sadness, has always been the reason I
climbed this
mountain
in the first place: I climbed to get away from it. I've never -
not once - regarded all that stuff as the very best of me,
as my humanity, as what makes me uniquely human, as something to
embrace. And it is, isn't it?".
Interesting
indeed ... "Embrace it without making it significant, and still
climb" I said, "only now you'll climb in order to climb
because you
love
climbing - not in order to reach the top (nor in order to get away from
the bottom). Do you get how much freedom there is in this?" I asked.
But I didn't need to. She got it, I could tell - just by looking at her
face.