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




Two By Four Tap

Monterey Bay, California, USA

March 27, 2008



This essay, Two By Four Tap, was conceived at the same time as A Future Worth Living Into.

It is the companion piece to Unmessable (With).



Werner's work evolves ongoingly as a function of its true nature, and expands exponentially as a function of the listening for it in the world.

Over the years, many things have been said in the gallery about the delivery methods deployed making Werner's work, available. When Werner first took front and center stage, when the possibility of transformation first became real in the world, when that fish walked up on land for the first time bringing with it elephants and eagles like a possibility, it was said the delivery methods were harsh, austere, even arrogant. Whereas the Zen master jogs his students with a tap on the shoulder, some called Werner's work, the "two by four over the head"  approach to enlightenment. Of course, there wasn't ever a two by four anywhere in sight. But that's what they called it anyway.

Lately in the same gallery it's been said the current iteration of Werner's work, has kinder, gentler  delivery methods, that the kinder, gentler delivery methods are a result of a new intention coming from savvy marketing which realizes a less arduous approach is required to maintain customer interest.

I assert if you look, you'll see the intention behind the totality of all  iterations of Werner's work, historic and up to the minute  current, has hardly changed at all. The intention is to share the possibility of transformation and make it real in the world. An island of stability in an ever changing universe, this intention remains reliably, put it in the bank  constant. I assert something else accounts for the impression that a retooling of delivery methods has occurred.

To the creek trying to flow through  the rock, it may indeed appear there's been a change in the rock's quintessential nature once the river figures out what works  is to flow around  the rock.

Indeed, if any changes at all have occurred in the delivery methods of Werner's work they can be accounted for not by reworked marketing strategies but rather by a simple obvious yet expected dramatic shift in the listening  of the world. for Werner's work, for Werner's ideas, and for transformation.

Millions and millions of people no longer need convincing  about the possibility of transformation. By now we know it's possible. There's been a contextual shift  in the listening for transformation in the world due in part or wholly to Werner's enormous albeit largely unheralded impact. Inside this shift in global listening, not only has transformation become a real, tangible, thrilling, live possibility, but the perception of and the receptivity for  Werner's work has also shifted dramatically. With this shift in receptivity for Werner's work comes an opening, a clearing  in the global listening for it. So its delivery methods naturally appear to be "kinder and gentler" because, to paraphrase the old adage, even though they're still just as rigorous to speak as they always were, now they're easier to listen.

What was once opined as the "two by four over the head" approach to enlightenment is no longer seen that way simply because a ready listening for transformation, a global appetite  for transformation, a global appetite  for transformation has opened up. Its value now clearly evidenced, both neophyte and veteran participants in Werner's work are more likely to listen for transformation from the get go.

Because of that, the Zen master's two by four tap  is no longer required. The river, already anticipating that transformation works like a possibility, now flows around  the rock. But the rock's quintessential nature hasn't changed.



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