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




Transformation Is Accountability Plus Committed Speaking

Cowboy Cottage, East Napa, California, USA

October 2, 2014



"Transformation lives in accountability. Without accountability, without committed speaking, without promises and declarations, there is no transformation; there is, at best, peak feelings."
 ... 
"If you don't take it out into the world, you didn't get it in the first place."
 ... 
This essay, Transformation Is Accountability Plus Committed Speaking, is the tenth in an open group on Transformation:
  1. Transformation
  2. Nelson Mandela And Transformation
  3. The Way Of Transformation
  4. Transformation: The Life And Legacy Of Werner Erhard
  5. Moment Of Truth
  6. Transformation II
  7. No Line
  8. Transformation Is Timeless
  9. Transforming Life Itself: A Completely Started Inquiry
  10. Transformation Is Accountability Plus Committed Speaking
  11. Not One Size Fits All
  12. Transforming Disciplines
  13. What It Also Comes Down To
  14. Transforming The Untransformable
  15. Who You Might Be Really
so far, in that order.




Transformation is slippery. Just when I think I've gotten it down, just when I think I've gotten my articulation of it ie my definition of it down, just when I think I've nailed  it, it reveals itself newly. It shows up newly. It morphs. Just when I think I've seen all of them, it adds another facet, like an ever-expanding jewel. It's probably correct to say it'll never stop doing this. It's probably correct to say if it  didn't keep growing then I  wouldn't keep growing. I grow to reach it. It grows more. So I must grow to reach it newly.

There's no resting on any laurels here. And there are always laurels in any life expanding in transformation. Yet to rest on any of them is to ring the death knell of transformation itself. The laurels of transformation aren't anything to crow about. At best, they're to be enjoyed and shared in any way imaginable except resting on them - a deadly folly. There are goodies, to be sure, in any life expanding in transformation - just ask anyone who knows Werner's work. Yet going for the goodies (so to speak) just plain doesn't work. It's sharing what's possible  that's paramount in perpetuating transformation, rather than accumulating goodies. What's interesting to note, however, is that in sharing what's possible, the goodies seem to accumulate all by themselves.

One of the fundamental shifts in appreciation which has occurred for me as I look ongoingly to articulate the onset (ie how it comes about) of transformation itself - both in my own life as well as in the life of others, in my family, in my friends, in those around me - is the shift from regarding transformation as something which can be (quote unquote) gotten, to something which can really only be (quote unquote) given. First it's gotten ... from then on it's given.

That's not a trivial distinction. It's quite profound, really. It only comes with a certain maturity. Perhaps the only time ie perhaps the only occasion it's appropriate to speak of transformation in terms of (quote unquote) getting it  is on the very first occasion ie on the very first occasion transformation is ever experienced. Once transformation is experienced on the very first occasion and gotten, then getting it may no longer be as powerful an access to transformation as giving  it.

To be re-gotten (which gives the experience again), transformation must be given away (which re-gives the experience again and perpetuates it). The way transformation is given, which is to say the way transformation is brought forth  and shared is through language ie through speaking and listening. By bringing forth transformation through language, I don't mean simply through talking about it. I don't mean simply through chatting about it. I mean through committed speaking.

Committed speaking is speaking with integrity, which is a way of speaking while honoring my word as mySelf. And the difference between merely talking about transformation and the committed speaking which brings it forth, is in committed speaking there's the presence of a Self-generated quality called accountability  - like: when I speak, I declare myself to be accountable for honoring my word as mySelf ie you can count on me to be accountable for honoring my word as mySelf.

In this way, transformation comes forth in (or as)  my committed speaking while I'm being accountable. So my transformation is evident, is shared, is brought forth in my accountability plus my committed speaking. That's the actual dynamic. That's what sustains and perpetuates transformation after the initial experience of getting it. That's what continually breathes Life into it and takes it out into the world.



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