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




Wall Socket

Regusci Winery, Silverado Trail, Napa Valley, California, USA

October 14, 2016



"But that is like saying that the hole in the sand looks like the stick that you made the hole in the sand with. Holes in the sand and sticks are worlds apart. To put what happened into language would be like trying to describe a stick by telling you about the hole in the sand."
 ... 
"When you find yourself in the thick of it, help yourself to a bit of what is all around you, silly girl!"
 ... The Beatles, Martha My Dear
"The tree leaves, the ocean waves, the universe peoples."
 ... Alan Watts, deploying plural nouns "leaves", "waves", and "peoples" as third-person verbs
This essay, Wall Socket, is the companion piece to
  1. Sandals On My Head
  2. Direct Experience
in that order.




What is transformation? That's the question. On any another occasion, this question may lean toward considering how we define  transformation. But on this occasion, I'd like it to be considering something less pointed and therefore arguably more malleable and accommodating: I'd like it to be considering how we know  transformation - which is to say I'd like it to be considering how we recognize our experience of it ie how we know when we're experiencing it.

It could be said something not of the world, shows up in our lives ... and we call it transformation. But what is  that something? What is it that shows up, against which we say our experience is transformed (which is to say against which we say we  are transformed)? ... and  ... (to include a key aspect of its nature) what is it that shows up, disappears, shows up, then disappears, then shows up again (and again and again and again), against which we say our experience is transformed?

In considering what the yardsticks of authentic transformation are or could be (in other words, against which we know the contextual shift which is transformation, has occurred), a plethora of things come to mind - like full Self-expression, health, relationships that work (or at least relationships which can tap into workability at will), a sense of well-being etc. We could also add to this list the disappearance of (or at least the softening up of) all those self-enforced barriers we erect and justify keeping in place to prevent others from gaining full access to who we really are (the intended result) which also hold us back from playing full out (the unintended result).

In looking deeper, I get to see it's possible to even narrow it down a bit more. What, for example, would account for and provide the space ie the impetus  for full Self-expression, health, working relationships, and sense of well-being etc to show up at all in the first place?  What (I would ask) is that  thing ie what is that  quality, that catalyst, that experience  which makes it possible for all the others to also show up, and against which we know all the others have shown up?

At first, what I came up with was a certain elan, an alacrity, a joie de vivre, all of which are certainly candidates for the position. But the thing I saw on closer inspection is you can also motivate  yourself to act with any and all of elan, alacrity, and joie de vivre. And if there's one thing you can say about generating transformation, it's that it does not  come from and nor does it require motivation or being motivated. By the way, that's what's behind our request, if you're planning on taking on ie if you're planning on discovering transformation for yourself, that you switch off and close all your motivation tapes, books, and manuals, and set them aside - at least temporarily until this  conversation is complete (you can always pick them up again later where you left them).

What it may be ie what the experience against which transformation shows up may be ie what the experience akin to putting your finger into a wall socket  which shocks you fully awake and has you be bolt upright and paying attention may be, is discovering the unified automaticity of Life itself for the first time, and realizing there are no hard edges and / or dividing lines separating who we really are from Life itself. It's all turning out, and we're  all turning out along with it. And it's all turning out (which includes our lives are all turning out) mostly not because  of what we do but rather in spite of  what we do.

It's likely that getting this, creates the space ie the ground, in which transformation takes root and shows up. It's likely that getting this, is the finger-in-the-wall-socket experience, after which it's just not possible to ontologically be  the same way about things ever again, paving the way for the onset of the miracle of transformation.



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